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Author: Logue-Conroy, Rebecca
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Logue-Conroy, Rebecca
Fathers' Use of Leave at the Birth of a Child: An Examination of Factors Influencing Fathers' Leave-Taking Behaviors
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Social Work, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, 2023
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Fathers; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

As more mothers have entered and remained in the labor force, more families have become dual-income, dual-caregiving families with fathers taking on more caregiving tasks at home. Accompanying these labor force changes are changes to state and workplace policies to provide access to expanded paid parental leave that includes fathers. In this dissertation, I will examine three mechanisms that may influence fathers' choice to take leave--access to paid leave through the state, access to paid leave through work, and within-family negotiations about care given a mother’s bargaining power. I conducted a secondary data analysis using Waves 3-19 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2019). This study used a cross-sectional sample consisting of children as the unit of analysis. These children had fathers who were employed at birth, were 18 or older, and were living with the child's mother. The final sample of children consisted of 2,342 children from 1,089 fathers. This study also used a longitudinal sample of fathers whose leave status changed for different births. This sample consisted of 246 fathers with 622 children. Associations for the cross-sectional sample were estimated using logistic regression models, controlling for a rich set of father, child, and mother sociodemographic characteristics. Associations for the longitudinal sample were estimated using logistic regression models with individual fixed effects. Results of the cross-sectional analysis suggest that both access to leave through the state and access to leave through work are associated with increased leave-taking by fathers. Results of the longitudinal analysis suggest that for the same fathers over time, access to leave through work is associated with leave-taking for one child over another. This study examining policy factors that influence fathers' leave-taking is unique in its inclusion of both state policy and workplace policy. It is also unique in its examination of the same fathers over time. Results of this study will be useful for policymakers when deciding how to design leave policies going forward. In addition, results of this study will be useful for practitioners as they support families in making decisions about leave. As more families continue to move toward egalitarian divisions of labor, fathers' leave-taking and its effects on families will continue to be important to examine.
Bibliography Citation
Logue-Conroy, Rebecca. Fathers' Use of Leave at the Birth of a Child: An Examination of Factors Influencing Fathers' Leave-Taking Behaviors. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Social Work, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, 2023.