The Parent (Mother?) Trap

Abstract

Gender equality is increasingly becoming a goal of a variety of social policies. This paper explores the parental leave system, and the issues with it. Specifically, it examines the low rates of fathers who take leave, and the impact of this on traditional gender norms and the division of labour, showing how these policies can work to encourage or discourage gender equality based on their design. This paper contemplates the role of behavioural approaches in public policy and its application to parental leave policies, especially concerning improving their effectiveness in promoting leave to fathers. This paper argues that the relevancy of behavioural public policy to social care policies, such as parental leave, has been overlooked in the literature and that ample opportunities exist for powerful behavioural tools, such as ‘nudging,’ ‘framing,’ and ‘default option design,’ to play a robust and effective part in moving the needle on gender equality.