The Economic Case for Paternity Leave
More maternity leave might sound like a great idea, but as long as mothers are the only parents taking leave, longer stints at home actually worsen job discrimination against them and makes them less likely to pursue a career.
Rather, as the experiences of Sweden, Iceland, and a handful of other countries show, the secret to keeping mothers in the workforce lies not in giving them more time off, but in getting more fathers to stay at home instead
.. Accounting for seven-tenths of global consumer spending, women are “the ultimate agents of aggregate demand,” says Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund. Companies that design and market their goods and services in ways that appeal to women will sell more effectively than those that don’t. Companies led by talented women are more likely to pull that off.
.. Paradoxically, upping female employment levels appears to stave off this peril. Women in countries with higher female employment rates give birth to more children, on average, according to Goldman Sachs.
.. It’s telling that the better educated a woman is, the more likely she is to stay out of the workforce.
.. “Society is a mirror of the family,” Westerberg told the Times. “The only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve equality in the home. Getting fathers to share the parental leave is an essential part of that.”