Expansions in paid parental leave and mothers’ economic progress

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of reforms extending paid parental leave on mothers’ progress to the upper echelons of their companies. Using employer–employee matched data and examining a series of reforms between 1987 and 2005 in Norway, we find that longer parental leave neither helped nor hurt mothers’ chances to be at the top of their companies’ pay ranking or in the C-suite up to 25 years after childbirth. This holds true also for highly educated women and high performers across all sectors. Key career determinants, such as hours worked and promotions, are unaffected in the short and long run. Finally, fathers’ career progression and within-household gender wage gaps have also remained unaltered.