ABSTRACT
Throughout the 1990s fathers across Western Europe were increasingly enabled to spend paternal time, following changes to national legislation regarding access to leave. We create a father-friendly policy index to construct a typology of governmental leave provisions specifically available to fathers by 1996–1997. We then analyze the time spent caring for children by fathers in Western Europe in 1996 and 2001, using the European Community Household Panel survey. We find that the time fathers spend caring for children, and gender inequalities in time caring for children, vary considerably by country. The policy index is correlated with both absolute and relative levels of fathers’ time spent caring for children.
