Understanding the Barriers to Paternity Leave Taking: Evidence from Japan

Providing information on the extent of support for paternity-leave taking among various groups (e.g., peers, older generation, employers) and managers’ beliefs about the career impacts of paternity leave-taking to Japanese men.

2024-03-08

2024-08-01

We will conduct two survey experiments among Japanese men to study how information provision about the extent of others’ support and managers’ beliefs about the career impacts of paternity leave-taking affects their attitudes and willingness to take-up paternity leave. Our experimental design will allow us to assess the extent to which misperceptions about the extent of support among various groups (e.g., peers vs. managers) contributes to the low level of paternity-leave taking among Japanese men.

The first survey experiment targets a representative sample of married men who are currently employed. Our outcomes of interest include:
(1) Likelihood of encouraging a male friend who is about to have a child to take different durations of paternity/childcare leave within the first year of the child’s birth. Specifically, we will present a hypothetical scenario about a male friend who is similar in age and education and working for a similar type of company and is deciding about whether to take paternity leave. We will then ask participants, “What advice would you give your friend, specifically, what is the percent chance (or chances out of 100) that you would encourage him to take 0 days, < 1 week, 1 to 2 weeks, 2 weeks to 1 month, > 3 months, of paternity leave.”

Analysis: Comparing this outcome across the control and treatment groups will provide an estimate of the impact of the information treatment on participants’ attitudes toward paternity leave-taking.

(2) For participants who are planning to have a child in the near future, we will ask the likelihood that they will take paternity leave of various durations within the first year of the child’s birth.

Analysis: Comparing this outcome across the control and treatment groups will provide an estimate of the impact of the information treatment on participants’ intended behavior.

(3) Beliefs about the career impacts of taking paternity leave and managers’ support of paternity leave-taking among their subordinates.

Analysis: Comparing these outcomes across the control and treatment groups will provide an estimate of how beliefs update as a result of the information treatment.

The second survey experiment targets a representative sample of married men who expect/plan to have a baby in the next year (the survey company we are working with has access to such a sample of to-be fathers). We will survey this group of married men at least twice, once before they have a child (baseline survey), and another time a year later after they have had a child (follow-up survey). Funds permitting, we will survey them a third time two years later.

The information treatment will be embedded in the baseline survey, and the outcome of interest will be intended paternity leave-taking behavior. In the follow-up survey, the outcome of interest will be participants’ actual (self-reported) leave-taking behavior. To study belief updating, we will also re-ask questions on participants’ beliefs about the extent of others’ support for paternity-leave taking as well as the career impacts of taking paternity-leave.

For the first survey experiment, participants will be randomly assigned into a control group and four treatment groups. The treatment groups will receive varying sets of information about peer support for paternity-leave taking, managers’ support, and managers’ beliefs about the career impacts of taking paternity-leave.

The experimental set-up for the second survey experiment will be similar, with the exact number of treatments groups and the information provided to each group to be determined based on the findings in the first survey experiment (we will update pre-analysis plan accordingly prior to the roll-out of this experiment).

The information provided to the participants will be obtained from surveys of attitudes and beliefs surrounding paternity leave-taking that we conduct prior to the survey experiments. These “pre-intervention” surveys will be conducted on representative samples of the individuals and managers. These surveys will be used to establish the attitudes surrounding paternity leave-taking in Japan among various groups of individuals and the accuracy of perceptions of others’ beliefs. We will survey married/unmarried men and women between the ages of 25 to 49, older men and women aged 55 and above, as well as middle managers and upper-level managers across a representative set of industries.

Not available

Randomization will be done by the survey company.

Individual

No

N/A

For the first survey experiment, we plan to target up to 5,000 married men between the ages of 25 to 49 who are employed in companies or the government. For the second survey experiment, we plan to target up to 8,000 men who expect/plan to have a child sometime in the next year.

Experiment 1: 1,000 in each treatment arm (1 control group, 4 treatment arms)

Experiment 2: 2,000 in each treatment arm at baseline (1 control group, 3 treatment arms). Expect attrition in the follow-up sample, with a target sample size of ~800 for the follow-up.