ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Parental Leave in Estonia: DoesFamilization of Fathers Lead toDefamilization of Mothers?

MARRE KARU

Institute of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Tartu, Estonia, and PRAXIS Centre for Policy

Studies, Tartu, Estonia

ABSTRACT In comparison with its Nordic neighbours, the post-Soviet Estonia, with its fairshare of deeply rooted gender stereotypes and dominant heteronormativity, does not live up to thedual earner/dual carer family model. Despite having developed a generous leave scheme modelledafter the Nordic countries, the father’s contribution to child-care remains almost non-existent, andprogress towards equalizing the division of care has been slow. Using registry data, the currentstudy shows that, in addition to fathers’ low take-up of parental leave, when the father does takeleave, this does not always result in the immediate employment of the mother. Without some rolereversal, the impact of the father’s leave remains even more limited. The study shows that thefamilization of fathers has less probability of leading to the defamilization of mothers if themother was previously unemployed, of young age, or with four or more children.

Introduction

Analyses of parental leave, its gendered effects, and its role in achieving genderequality have gained a remarkable amount of attention in social policy analysis (e.g.Haas 1992; Moss & Deven 1999; Moss & Kamerman 2009). This paper contributesto the field by analysing the impact of fathers’ take-up of parental leave on theemployment behaviour of mothers in the context of post-Soviet Estonia.

The uneven division of child-care between men and women is regarded as one ofthe main reasons behind gender inequalities in the labour market (Hobson &Morgan2002). If more fathers stayed at home to provide familized care, more mothers couldbecome defamilized and available for work. It is expected that increasing fathers’involvement in child-care would advance gender equality in the labour market

0803-8740 Print/1502-394X Online/12/020094–108 q 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2011.601466

Correspondence Address: Marre Karu, Institute of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Tartu, Tiigi

78, Tartu 50410, Estonia. Email: marre.karu@praxis.ee

NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research,Vol. 20, No. 2, 94–108, June 2012

(Connell 2003; Morgan 2009) and lead to a dual earner/dual carer family model“where men and women engage symmetrically in both paid work and unpaidcaregiving” (Gornick & Meyers 2003: 92). However, most societies see very littledevelopment in degendering the taking of parental leave, which provides an impetusfor researchers to look more deeply into processes of familizing fathers, defamilizingmothers, and moving towards the dual earner/dual carer model.

There is an increasing body of research on the factors explaining men’s low take-up of parental leave (e.g. Haas et al. 2002; Lammi-Taskula 2008) and the effects thisexperience has on fathers’ and mothers’ involvement in child-care and employmentdecisions in the long run (e.g. Haas 1992; Pylkkanen & Smith 2003; O’Brien 2009).Indeed, the families concerned seem to have experienced some behavioural changes,and they may have moved slowly in the direction of the dual earner/dual carer modelafter they experience the father taking parental leave.

However, there is also a word of warning given by some researchers not to over-estimate the emancipatory impact of parental leave (e.g. Bruning & Plantenga 1999;Moss & Deven 1999; Leira 2002). Not all studies find that a father’s parental leaveexperience has a remarkable, or even any, long-term impact on work and carepractices (e.g. Ekberg et al. 2005; Eydal 2009).

Along with Brandth and Kvande (2003), I argue that the impact of fathers’parental leave depends on how it is used. The policies can have the expected impactonly if they are used in the expected way and the underlying assumptions hold.Fathers’ parental leave does not always take the form of role reversal, and manyfathers are on leave together with the mother of the child (Brandth & Kvande 2001;Eydal 2009). In other words, familizing fathers does not always lead to defamilizingmothers, fathers do not become primary carers of the child, and the gender relationsin the family remain unchanged. I argue that the impact on gender equality and thechange in female employment prospects resulting from the father’s take-up ofparental leave is limited depending, among other things, on whether mothers returnto work and whether fathers become primary carers of their children.

This article looks more deeply into whether and under what conditions thisassumption holds in Estonia and whether the familization of fathers leads todefamilization of mothers. The use of the terms familization and defamilization isinspired by Arnlaug Leira, who uses them in the analysis of child-care policies.According to her, the familization of child-care refers to policy measures that supportparental care for children at home (Leira 2002: 42). I argue that, as a result offamilizing policies, someone becomes familized. A person in the opposite situationcan be described as defamilized. In this context, a defamilized person is someone whois free of child-care responsibilities and is active outside the family, in the labourmarket. We look at the situation where child-care is familized, and we ask who is theperson who gets familized and is at home, providing parental care for children. Themain question is the extent to which mothers go (back) to work when fathers takeup their right to leave and what the factors influencing that decision are.

Estonia, with its post-Soviet history combined with a leave policy that has adoptedmany components of the long and generous Nordic leave schemes (Karu & Pall2009), is an intriguing example to study. With one-and-a-half years of full incomecompensation, it is one of themost generous parental leave schemes in Europe, both in

Parental Leave in Estonia 95

terms of duration and compensation. Nevertheless, the amount of leave-sharing byfathers is still marginal, and very limited progress has been made in encouraginggender equality in the labour market. Estonian society still follows traditional genderroles and stereotypes. As Karu (2009) points out, gender equality has not beenintegrated as a policy objective in policy-making in Estonia. In this society, with adominant traditional division of roles, behavioural changemay be expected to be slow.

In this context, looking at what happens in post-Soviet Estonian families when thefather takes up a Nordic type of parental leave is especially exciting. Are fathers whoare taking up the leave new fathers who are moving the family in the direction of adual earner/dual carer model? Is there a real role reversal that questions the existinggender order and gender roles? “Compromise” solutions can be expected wherefamilies find opportunities to allow fathers to benefit from the option of parentalleave without changing or reversing the traditional gender order. Registry data onEstonian families where the father has taken up parental leave benefit in the period2004–2007 are used to shed light on this question.

First, I provide an overview of the theoretical framework relating to parental leaveand labour market equality and describe the effect the father’s leave-taking isexpected to have on female employment. Secondly, I introduce the Estonian parentalleave scheme in order to put the care and employment decisions of the families intocontext. Then, before discussing the results, data and methods are introduced, andfinally conclusions are drawn.

Parental leave and gender inequality in the labour market

Parental leave policies constitute a response to the need for better reconciliationbetween family and work responsibilities in order to allow parents to besimultaneously active in the labour market and provide care for their children and,consequently, achieve a more egalitarian society. Parental leave is generally a gender-neutral family entitlement—available to both men and women, depending upon thechoice of the family. This supposedly gender-neutral policy, however, acts in practiceas a gendered policy reproducing gendered choices and gender inequality (Leira 2002;Morgan 2009), since it usually results in a traditional situation where women take thelion’s share of the leave.

Due to their gendered effects, leave policies have a controversial influence onlabour market equality. Two dimensions—the level of employment and equalopportunities—should be distinguished (Leira 2002: 103). Firstly, parental leave hasa positive impact on women’s labour market participation (e.g. Klerman & Leibowitz1997; Rønsen 1999; Spiess & Wrolich 2007) since job-protected leave allows for aneasier return to employment. Also, income-related benefit provides a stimulus towork before giving birth, which also increases the probability of re-enteringemployment later (Baker & Milligan 2008). Recent research indicates that theintroduction of a new income-related parental leave scheme in Estonia hasencouraged female employment before the leave (Vork et al. 2009).

Secondly, a negative impact is found on equal opportunities. As the leave policiesfunction as familizers of child-care (Leira 2002: 43), they also familize the personproviding the care. Due to the unequal division of leave between mothers and fathers,

96 M. Karu

women’s careers are more fragmented (Rønsen 1999; Salmi & Lammi-Taskula 1999),and they accumulate fewer years of work experience (Klerman & Leibowitz 1997).Since all women are expected to take parental leave at some point in their life, theymay become subject to statistical discrimination (Wharton 2005). This altogethermakes women disadvantaged regarding promotion, training, and income (Klerman& Leibowitz 1997; Leira 2002). This disadvantage may be called a “penalty ofmotherhood” (Budig & England 2001).

In Estonia, the employment rate of women is relatively high (60.5% in 2010 for15–64-year-olds), but regarding other equality indicators Estonia lags behind allother European countries. Estonia is the country with the greatest labour marketgender segregation, both vertical and horizontal (Bettio &Verashchagina 2009), andthe greatest gender pay gap, reaching as much as 30.9% in 2007 (while the EUaverage was 17.6%). A recent study confirmed that motherhood is one of thesignificant explanations for the pay gap in Estonia (Anspal et al. 2010). The impact ofparenthood in Estonia (measured by the employment gap between women (age-group 20–49) with and without children under 7 years old) was also among thelargest in Europe in 2009, after the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, reaching25.8 percentage points (EU27 average 12.1 percentage points) (EuropeanCommission 2010).

In order to lessen the negative impact of parenthood on female employment andequal opportunities, the familization of fathers (Leira 2002, 2006) has been found tobe a solution, or as Esping-Andersen (2009: 83) puts it: “positive equilibriumnecessitates a ‘feminization’ of the male life course”. It is a common assumption thatthe institution of parental leave advances care-sharing parenthood (Ellingsæter &Leira 2006a: 29), and changing fathers’ care practices and increasing their take-up ofparental leave may result in improvements in gender equality (Moss & Deven 1999;Ellingsæter & Leira 2006b).

Parental leave policies have become an intrinsic part of European social policy, butthey are not only limited to Europe. In 2007, 66 nations had an entitlement to paidpaternity leave or a parental leave provision to which fathers had access (Heymannet al. 2007). However, with the exception of the Nordic countries, the success inincreasing fathers’ involvement in child-care remains limited.

In the Nordic countries, in the development of parental leave institutions,fatherhood was already a focus area during the 1990s (Lammi-Taskula 2008). Thesecountries have chosen to stimulate the familizing of fathers by providing individualand non-transferable leave rights for fathers (i.e. daddy’s month or father’s quota)(O’Brien 2009; Lammi-Taskula 2008). This has indeed increased the number offathers taking up the leave (Haas et al. 2002; Rostgaard 2002).

Several researchers have, however, warned against over-estimating the emanci-patory impact of parental leave (Moss & Deven 1999; Leira 2002; Brandth & Kvande2003). There are also several studies that do not find the expected impact or find onlysmall changes in the care-related behaviour of fathers who have been on parentalleave (see, for instance, for Sweden on child-care allocation Kluve & Tamm 2009, andon leave taken for sick children Ekberg et al. 2005).

I argue that this lack of, or limited, impact may be partially due to the fact thatnot all fathers who take up leave become actual or primary carers of their children.

Parental Leave in Estonia 97

As pointed out by Soren Carlsen (1993), parental leave statistics do not tell the wholestory, since arrangements for time spent with the children are made outside theframework of the leave. Brandth and Kvande (2003) also emphasize that the impactof the father’s quota does depend on the way it is used. Thus, the question is: Whatreally happens within the family regarding child-care and work arrangements whenthe father is officially on parental leave?

Depending on the details of national leave policies, different choices are available tofamilies, depending, for instance, on howworking and part-time leave possibilities areregulated. Carlsen (1993) and Karu et al. (2007) have shown that there is a wholevariety of different arrangements that mothers and fathers can make for the father’sleave. It is possible that during the father’s parental leave the mother takes her annualholiday or sabbatical leave and stays at home as well (Rostgaard 2002; Haataja 2004).There is some evidence from Norway and Iceland showing that quite a largeproportion of fathers use their parental leavewhile themother is still at home (Brandth& Øverli 1998, quoted in Leira 2002; Brandth & Kvande 2001; Eydal 2009).

This is significant because the impact of leave on the father’s and mother’sbehaviour is stronger when fathers stay at home alone, not together with the mother(Brandth & Kvande 2003). If the familization of the father does not bring along withit the defamilization of the mother, the father does not become a primary carer, andthe mother’s primacy and responsibility is not challenged, therefore gender relationsdo not change (Lammi-Taskula 2008), and the father does not develop his carepractices and will not become comfortable with small children (Brandth & Kvande2003). Consequently, the father’s use of parental leave will not have the expectedimpact on gender equality.

Parental leave in Estonia

As in most post-Soviet countries, there has been a long period of parental leave inEstonia since the 1990s, inherited from the Soviet system. Before 1991, the Sovietsystem provided a long, quite well paid child-care leave, exclusively for mothers(Karu & Pall 2009). Parental leave in Estonia is available to one of the parents(or other carer) at a time, and it may be taken up at any time before the child’s thirdbirthday. In 2004, Estonia, following the example of Nordic policies, introduced anincome-related parental benefit scheme, mainly with the aim of encouraging fertility(Karu & Pall 2009). Initially, parental benefit covering 100% of earnings from theprevious calendar year was paid for 365 days, and it has been extended twice,reaching 575 days by 2008 (Table 1). The rest of the parental leave period is paid at alow flat-rate benefit. As a comparison, maternity and parental leave in Finlandtogether are paid at 70%–90% of previous income for 263 days (Lammi-Taskula &Takala 2009), in Sweden 390 days are compensated at 90% (plus 90 days of flat rate)(Chronholm 2009), and in Norway 44 weeks (308 days) are paid at 100%, or 54 weeks(378 days) at 80% of earnings (Brandth & Kvande 2009).

However, in Estonia, in three specific cases a flat-rate benefit is paid. First, there isa ceiling set at the level of three times the national average wage, which amounts toe2,157 per month in 2011. Second, unemployed and inactive persons are eligible toreceive the minimum benefit, and, third, to encourage employment, those with

98 M. Karu

short-term or very low-paid employment receive benefits to the amount of the

national minimum wage. This should be, in principle, a somewhat higher amount

than the benefit paid to unemployed persons, but in practice, from 2009, these

benefits have been equal because, during the financial crisis, the minimum wage has

been frozen.The parental benefit is not directly tied to parental leave—the leave is not a

precondition for receiving parental benefit. If one of the parents is on parental leave,

she or he is entitled to the benefit. In other cases, beneficiaries are allowed to continue

working, but the benefit is reduced depending on the amount they earn in addition.1

This is a way of providing some flexibility for the parents as there are no part-time

options like, for instance, in Norway (Brandth & Kvande 2009). In most cases it is,

however, not very beneficial to continue working full-time as the added value from

work remains small in comparison with the full benefit. In 2011, it is allowed to earn

e278 (minimum benefit level) and still receive the full benefit. No benefit is paid if the

earnings exceed five times the minimum (e1,390 in 2011). In 2010, about 25% of

fathers receiving parental benefit also received some income from work, in most cases

exceeding the minimum benefit level.The parental leave and parental benefit are based on family eligibility—parents can

choose who takes the leave and benefit. There is no individual right for fathers;

instead, due to lobbying by paediatricians, the access for fathers was initially limited,

and they could take up the benefit only after the child was 6 months old (Karu & Pall

2009). This restriction was abolished in September 2007, and since then fathers can

take up the benefit as soon as the child is 70 days old (i.e. after the maternity leave is

over). While fathers’ access to the benefit was limited, they were deterred from taking

the leave, and the male bread-winner/female carer model was further strengthened—

fathers were not regarded as equal carers (Karu et al. 2007).As pointed out by Karu and Pall (2009), the parental leave scheme in Estonia was

designed on the basis of the Swedish model, but with very few gender equality

objectives in mind. The concept of gender equality is not new in Estonia, since

equality, including gender equality, was one of the leading principles of the Soviet

Union. The aims advocated under the Soviet regime were very modern and similar to

those of contemporary Western Europe, but the meaning of equality and the means

employed to achieve it were very different. Karu and Pall (2009: 71–72) emphasize

that, in the Soviet Union, the state provided the services needed to free mothers from

house-work and child-care; fathers had no role in this. Paradoxically, traditional

Table 1. Three types of parental benefits in Estonia, 2004–2011 (euros).

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Maximum monthly rate 1,006 1,117 1,227 1,382 1,611 1,963 2,257 2,157Minimum monthly rate:for previously unemployed parents

140 140 159 172 230 278 278 278

Minimum monthly wage:for previously low-paid parents

159 172 192 230 278 278 278 278

Source: Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs.

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gender roles were encouraged, among other things through the relatively longmaternity leave that was available only to women. Gender equality in social life was aprinciple forced upon citizens by a hostile power, performed under coercion andactually leading to a double burden for women.

This made people resistant not only to the concept of gender equality, but also tothe concept of feminism, which continues to have negative connotations (Marling2010). As pointed out by Marling (2010: 17), the goals of achieving social equalitymay have become marginalized because of their association with the “supposedlyalien and hostile ideological agenda of feminism”.

The practice of parental leave is in accordance with this—the take-up of parentalleave remains traditional. The share of fathers among parental benefit beneficiarieswas as low as 1% from 2004 to 2007, when it started to increase slowly, reaching 7%by 2010. The increase coincides with the change in the law when the restricted accessfor fathers was abolished.

Data and methods

The social insurance board data on beneficiaries of parental benefit in the period2004–2007 is used to analyse the employment of women whose partners have takenup parental benefit. Information on the level of parental benefit, the number ofchildren in the family, and the taxable income of the women was available for thisstudy. Using the ID of a child it was possible to match mothers with fathers, but onlyif the father had been recorded as a parental benefit beneficiary.

The preconditions for a family to be included in the study were that they had atleast one child and parental benefit had been paid to both parents during the period2004–2007. During this period, there were data on 1440 families where both mothersand fathers had received the parental benefit.

The first drawback of the registry data is the scarcity of background information.The second and even more crucial drawback is the fact that parental benefit is not anexact equivalent for the parental leave that is the actual focus of this study. However,data on parental leave are not available. The period of parental benefit is significantlyshorter than that of parental leave. Moreover, parental leave is not a prerequisite forreceiving parental benefit. The statistics show that, at different points during theperiod 2004–2007, around 60%–75% of the male beneficiaries were not receivingany income from work and therefore can be regarded as being fully on leave. In othercases it may be assumed that it was economically rational for the father to reduce hisworking hours at least to some extent. These fathers may be regarded as being onpart-time parental leave. Moreover, information on parental leave would not bemuch more useful for the purposes of the current study since the cases where thefather quits work or reduces his working hours using parental benefit (i.e. he is onpart-time leave) would not be recorded. Therefore, the data on parental benefit canbe regarded as a reasonable proxy for parental leave that allows us to gain someuseful insights into intra-family care arrangements. Nevertheless, it has to be takeninto account when interpreting the results that not all the fathers stopped working forall the months of their parental benefit.

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Firstly, the beneficiaries and their benefit periods are described. Secondly, in orderto shed light on the factors influencing the mothers’ employment behaviour, amethod of logistic regression has been performed. In a logistic regression analysis, theeffect of both continuous and categorical variables on the dependent variable can bemeasured, and the direct effects of each factor can be distinguished. A comparison ismade between mothers who have worked at least 1month during their male partners’parental benefit period and those who have not worked at all.

Variables

The dependent variable is the employment status of a mother during the father’sparental benefit period. A dummy variable has been created to describe whether thewomen worked for at least 1month while the father took up the parental benefit. Theemployment status is counted as “working” if there is some taxable income and “notworking” if there is no taxable income. There is a risk of somewhat over-estimatingfemale employment as it is not possible to distinguish those who have really returnedto work from those who are, for instance, on paid holiday or who receive some kindof bonuses retrospectively. However, to rule out this possible error, the analysis wasalso run with data where all cases where a mother received only 1 month’s taxableincome were dropped. Since the results did not change markedly, all the mothers areincluded in the final analysis.

It might be assumed that the longer the father is on leave, the more likely it is thatthe mother returns to work during this period, especially if the father’s leave is not atthe very end of the leave period. Therefore, the impact of the duration of father’sparental benefit is analysed in the model. The duration is measured in full months andit varies from 1month to 8 months, with two cases of 9 and 11 months.

The age of a child at the beginning of the father’s parental benefit period is alsointegrated into the analysis. It may be assumed that the younger the child, the lesslikely it is that the mother returns to employment due to breast-feeding or the lack ofconfidence or skills in handling very small children on the part of the father. The ageof the child is measured at the beginning of the father’s benefit period in days. Onaverage, children were 232 days (about 8 months) old.

Number of children defines the amount of care needed in the family. It may beexpected that, in the case of more children, the family may find it necessary for bothparents to be at home in order to care for the children. Also, it could be intimidatingfor the father to become a primary carer of more than one child. The majority offamilies in the sample have either one (34.7%), two (40.7%), or three (17.5%)children. There are also 104 (7.2%) families with four or more children.

The ages of both the mother and the father are also used in the analysis. It might beexpected that the father’s confidence in becoming the primary carer of the childincreases with age and life experience. The family’s work–care decisions may alsodepend on the mother’s age. Younger women may be planning to have more childrenand may therefore be less concerned about returning to employment, while women inolder age-groups are at the stage of completing their family creation and are(re)focusing on their career. The age is measured at the beginning of the father’sparental benefit period in full years. In the sample, there are fathers from 18 to 66

Parental Leave in Estonia 101

years old; 46% of the fathers are up to 30 years old. The age of the women varies from15 to 48 years.

Last, but not least, the labour market status of both parents before the birth of the(youngest) child is included in the analysis. The parental leave type (see Table 1) ofboth parents is used as a proxy for their previous employment status. It allows us todistinguish between (1) the unemployed—those who had no job during the previouscalendar year; (2) the partially employed—those whose monthly taxable incomeremained below the national minimum wage level, i.e. those with short, very low-paid, and part-time jobs; (3) the employed—those who were employed and whosemonthly average income remained between the minimum national wage and themaximum benefit level; and (4) the employed and highly paid—those who earned avery high income above the maximum benefit level (three times the national averagewage). This is an indicator of both previous employment status and the amount ofparental benefit.

The main assumption is that, for women who had a job prior to giving birth, it iseasier to return to employment as they have a job to return to. Moreover, they mayhave a stronger motivation to work in order to maintain the standard of living theyhad before child-birth. Women with no previous job may have difficulties in findingone during the father’s leave period even if they search actively.

The impact of the father’s labour market status is more difficult to predict. It ispossible that, if the father has no job or has been only partially employed, the motherneeds to enter employment during the father’s benefit period due to financialconsiderations. The amount of benefit that the previously unemployed receive is notenough to substitute for two wages. If the father receives benefit to the amount of hisprevious income at a reasonably high level, it may not be essential for the woman towork.

As there were few unemployed (35) or partially employed (79) fathers, they areconsidered as one category in the analysis. Similarly, mothers receiving maximumbenefit (38 mothers) are recoded in the same category with employed mothers whoreceive 100% of their previous wages.

Results: do mothers work when fathers are on leave?

There is a significant variance in the employment behaviour of women during fathers’parental benefit period. As expected, nearly half of the mothers (43.1%) did not worka single month during the father’s parental benefit period during the years 2004–2007. The father can therefore be assumed to either be at home together with themother of the child, to have reduced his working hours (part-time leave), or tocontinue working full time.

About a quarter (23.6%) of the families had chosen care and work arrangementswhere the familization of fathers was happening simultaneously with thedefamilization of mothers. These mothers were working for the whole of the father’sbenefit period. Additionally, there were many cases where mothers were partiallydefamilized and received income for at least part of the father’s benefit period (33.4%).

The take-up of work during the period of the father’s parental benefit variessignificantly among different groups. First of all, there is a pattern emerging that the

102 M. Karu

younger the parents are, the smaller the proportion of mothers who work; 43% of theyoungest mothers (up to 24 years old) and 77% of the oldest mothers (over 40 yearsold) worked at least 1month. Number of children in the family also plays a role as, infamilies with four or more children, less than half of the mothers go (back) to work.

The largest differences, however, are between mothers who have been employedbefore child-birth and those who have not. Three-quarters of previously unemployedmothers remain unemployed when the father takes up the benefit, while 76% ofmothers who were previously employed return to work. Thus, the group of motherswho are most disadvantaged in terms of employment do not gain in terms ofemployment experience from fathers’ parental benefit.

Factors influencing mothers’ employment

In order to analyse which of these factors has a direct impact on the mother’semployment during the father’s parental benefit period, a logistic regression modelwas carried out. The regression model allows us to measure the effect of one factor ifall other factors are held constant.

The model includes the following factors: mother’s and father’s employmenthistory; age of the mother, the father, and the child at the beginning of the father’sbenefit period; duration of father’s benefit period; and the number of children in thefamily. Father’s age proved to be statistically insignificant and is thus not displayed inthe figure. Figure 1 shows the results of the analysis showing the odds ratios. Themodel was significantly reliable (chi-square ¼ 269, df ¼ 13, P . 0.001).

The analysis shows that mother’s and father’s prior employment status and the ageof the mother have the strongest impact on the mother’s employment. First of all,ceteris paribus, mothers who were previously unemployed prior to giving birth hadsignificantly lower chances of entering the labour market during the father’s parentalbenefit period than those who were previously employed. Additionally, partial

1.10

2.05

0.78

0.47

1.37

1.49

2.37

0.52

0.12

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50

Duration of father's benefit (for each month)***

Father previously unemployed/partiallyemployed(comparison: employed)*

Two to three children (comparison 1 child)*

4 + children (comparison 1 child)**

Mother's age 25-29yrs (comparison 16-24)*

Mother's age 30-34yrs (comparison 16-24)*

Mother's age 35-48 yrs (comparison 16-24)***

Mother previously partially employed (comparison:employed)***

Mother previously unemployed (comparison: employed)***

Figure 1. Factors influencing mother’s employment during fathers parental leave (odds ratios).* P , 0.1, ** P , 0.05, *** P , 0.001.

Parental Leave in Estonia 103

employment also means that a return to the labour market is somewhat less likely.The father’s employment history has the exact opposite impact—mothers are 2.05times more likely take up jobs if the father was not employed or had partial or short-term employment before their (youngest) child was born. There was no significantdifference between fathers who received benefit to the amount of previous earnings orfathers who received the maximum benefit.

Prior employment status is directly connected to the amount of the benefit. Parentswith no or partial employment generally receive significantly lower benefits thanthose who were previously working. Thus, it is rational for the mother to enter thelabour market if the father only receives minimum benefits. Nonetheless, there werevery few fathers among parental benefit beneficiaries who were not employed orwhose monthly average wage remained below the national minimum wage (7.8%).

The age of the mother played a major role in the decision to (re-)enter the labourmarket. All other characteristics being the same, older mothers were more likely towork during the father’s benefit period than younger ones. Mothers in the age-group 35–48 were 2.37 times more likely to enter the labour market than 16–24-year-old women. Father’s age was insignificant in determining mother’s employment.Thus, the difference in the mother’s employment in the case of fathers in differentage-groups that we saw previously was due to some other differences between fathersin different age-groups, not due to age directly.

The number of children in the family also has the expected impact on the mother’sbehaviour—mothers are less likely to (re-)enter the labour market when there aremore children in the family. The age of the youngest child was not significant indetermining the mother’s employment behaviour. This is surprising, as it could beexpected that the younger the child is, the more likely it is that the mother is breast-feeding, and the less likely that the father becomes the primary carer.

Conclusion

The study showed that familizing fathers through parental leave schemes does notnecessarily lead to defamilizing mothers. A large proportion of Estonian fathers whotook up parental benefit most likely did not become the primary carer of their child asthe mother did not (re-)enter the labour market. Thus, the assumption that liesbehind the expectation that fathers’ greater involvement in parental leave schemeswill lead to role reversals and improve female chances in the labour market does notalways hold.

In cases where the father does not become the primary carer and the mother’sprimacy is not questioned, there may be little progress expected in moving towards adual earner/dual carer model. Nevertheless, it is possible that there is some indirectimpact on the norms of parenthood practices in a society when more fathers takeup at least some part of the leave. Fathers taking time out from work for familyreasons, regardless of how they use their leave, give a positive message to society andmay spread new views on parenthood and promote new fatherhood. Also, increasingfathers’ involvement and presence may have positive consequences for father–childrelationships and child development (Wilson & Prior 2010).

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Systematic differences in the employment behaviour of women during the father’sleave period emerge. On the family level, whether the mother enters the labourmarket when the father takes parental benefit depends strongly on the prioremployment status of both parents. Those mothers who did not work before theirparental leave are less likely to work during the father’s benefit period. At the sametime, if the father had no job or only a short-term or low-paid job, the mother is morelikely to enter the labour market. This may be seen as a sign of the forced emergenceof new fathering due to the need for economic survival—parental leave is used by thefather as an alternative source of income in case of job loss. Also, the older themother is, the more likely she is to work while the father receives the benefit. It maybe expected that in the older age-groups women are more established in their jobs andtheir return may be more inspired by their career aspirations, while at a younger agewomen are still more in the phase of family creation.

Thus, mothers whose labour market position has been secured before the birth ofthe child are more likely to be defamilized when fathers become familized. At thesame time, mothers who were out of the labour market before child-birth remainedout when father was familized. Thus, when talking from the perspective of femaleemployment, the most vulnerable group of women gained the least from fathers’take-up of parental benefit. Moreover, if both of the parents take time out to care, itis possible that both of them will suffer from the parenthood penalty. Indeed, there issome evidence that a father’s parental leave has a negative effect on his subsequentearnings (see e.g. Johansson 2010). If both of the parents stay out of the labourmarket for some time, the total career break of the family increases, and it is possiblethat parents become more disadvantaged in comparison with non-parents. In anycase, the importance of providing a stimulus to encourage the take-up of work beforeleave-taking should not be under-estimated.

This study goes behind the statistics of fathers’ take-up of parental leave and givesmore information on the work–care arrangements within the family. The data arenot detailed enough to determine whether mothers who receive taxable income for 1or 2 months really do work or whether they are, for instance, on paid vacation. Thus,it is likely that the share of women who work is somewhat over-estimated.Nevertheless, it is reasonably safe to assume that mothers who did not receive anyincome most likely really did not work.

The example of Estonia indicates that fathers use the parental leave policy invarious ways. It is possible to find solutions where fathers use parental benefitwithout changing the traditional gendered behaviour of either mothers or fathers.This manoeuvring may be especially prevalent in societies where there are strongtraditional gender roles and less openness to change—the leave policies are usedwithout questioning the existing gender order, and there is no real move towards adual earner/dual carer model. This should be kept in mind when consideringimplementing the daddy month in societies which are not really ready for these kindsof changes. It is possible that families also find ways of manoeuvring when using thedaddy months. However, in order for it to contribute to gender equality, fathers’take-up of the Estonian parental benefit should lead to a real increase in the amountof child-care undertaken by fathers and possibly also to role reversal within thefamily, not only in the numbers who take it up.

Parental Leave in Estonia 105

Note

1The benefit is reduced according to the formula: new benefit ¼ (benefit þ earnings – minimum benefit

level)/1.2 – (earnings – minimum benefit level). The minimum benefit level is set each year, and in 2011 it

was e278.

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Marre Karu is a PhD Student at the University of Tartu, Institute of Sociology andSocial Policy and an analyst in the PRAXIS Centre for Policy Studies. She obtainedher MA in Social Policy Analysis from the University of Leuven, Belgium. Her mainfield of research is gender equality and social policy. Her publications include: Karu,Marre & Kasearu, Kairi (2011) “Slow Steps Towards Dual Earner/Dual CarerFamily Model: Why Fathers Do Not Take Parental Leave?” Studies of TransitionStates and Societies, 3(1), pp. 24–38; Karu, Marre & Pall, Katre (2009) “Estonia:from Soviet Union to half way to the Nordic Countries”, in: Shelia B. Kamerman &Peter Moss (Eds) The Politics of Parental Leave Policies: Children, Parenting, Genderand the Labour Market, pp. 69–85 (Bristol: The Policy Press); and Karu, Marre(2009) Gender Mainstreaming Active Inclusion Policies: Estonia. External reportfinanced by and prepared for the use of the European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities.

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