Anne Sophie Lassen

Read the full paper here: opus4.kobv.de/opus4-hsog/f...

Comments are most welcome!!

In sum: parenthood leads to highly educated, ambitious women to leave their preferred occupation. The magnitude is large

In research, women’s underrepresentation affects both quality and direction of science

But the mechanism might be present in other demanding jobs: law, consultancy, finance

Which brings us to departments (workplaces, by field) in the admin data

Whether lab work and physical presence is required has no effect

Presence of senior women can mitigate the negative impact

Women who did their PhDs in highly productive, competitive department face a large penalty

Family environments doesn’t matter for the impact on women’s career

Parity in parental leave division is unheard of in this setting and extended family care is rare in Denmark

However, fathers who take paternity leave also face negative career consequences. Fathers who don’t get a premium

While respondents - academics in Denmark 🇩🇰 - say that childcare *should* be shared equally; this is not what occur in most families

Gender gaps are particularly large in “constraining childcare” such as doctor’s visits, night-time care, and sick days

Only dropping off in daycare is split equally 🙃

Women face large and persistent child penalties as they leave academia following motherhood

We decompose the penalty on tenure into 1) survival 2) labor supply 3) research output and show that 1) matters the most

However, the “unexplained component” increases over time

We use admin data to observe the early pipeline: phd students

We combine this with info on their family and their workplace

To answer:
👨🏻‍🍼Does family support mitigate the penalty?
👩🏼‍🏫 What can departments do?

We add info on productivity and surveys on academic ambitions and division of childcare

Yesterday, it was Women’s Day

Today, you can read our paper on parenthood and women’s under-representation in academia

Parenthood leads to women leaving academia - not just career slowdown

👇👇👇

Joint work with @cairosofie.bsky.social, @riaivandic.bsky.social and @valentinatartari.bsky.social

At the same time, leave satisfaction declines sharply, highlighting a welfare trade-off

Paternity leave can shift norms and reduce gender inequality, but such policies comes at a cost

The broader question - beyond the scope of our paper - is how to weigh these objectives

We also find labor market effects beyond the leave period

In the second year after the child is born (i.e. after leave has been exhaused), we find

- Gender earnings gap declines by 2.8pp
- Gender hours gap declines by 1.4pp

This corresponds to ~14% of Denmark’s child penalty

Effects are larger for first-time parents and for parents who change their behavior due to the reform.

We provide evidence that larger reforms - such as policies that ensures equal parental leave - have the potential to shift norms out of the conservative domain

The reform shifts gendered beliefs in a more progressive direction

Parents become less supportive of statements like:
- Pre-school children suffer if their mothers work full-time
- Mothers should take most leave
- Mothers are better caregivers of small children

First, we document a large first-stage. The reform reallocated roughly one month of leave from mothers to fathers

After the reform, fathers take more than 20 % of all parental leave

We study an expansion of earmarked paternity leave and link administrative data to a new survey of ~40,000 parents, interviewed twice, around the reform implementation

This allows us to provide causal evidence on leave behavior and earnings, but also on gender beliefs and norms

Can family policies shift gendered beliefs, social norms, and ultimately gender gaps in the labor market?

Yes!

Read our new WP for all the details

Expanding Paternity Leave: Effects on Beliefs, Norms, and Gender Gaps Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

Happy to finally see our new working paper on the effect of earmarked paternity leave out.

Joint work with: Henrik Kleven, Camillie Landais, @ansolassen.bsky.social, Philip Rosenbaum and Herdis Steingrimsdottir.

The figure shows the gender wage gap (the difference in average log hourly wages between males and females) in log points on the y-axis. The x-axis displays the gender wage premium gap, which is the sum of the sorting and pay-setting components. The diagonal lines represent scenarios in which firm wage premiums account for 10% (top line) and 40% (bottom line) of the total gender wage gap. Early explanations for gender wage gaps focused on human capital or career choices. This column uses data from the US and ten European countries to examine the role of firms. Across all countries considered, firms account for between 10% and 30% of the gender wage gap, mainly reflecting women being more likely to work at firms that pay less to all employees, irrespective of their skills. While men move to higher-paying firms as they advance in their career, women tend to stay behind. Women also tend to sort into low-wage firms in return for more flexibility in working time. The findings suggests that there is a case for complementing family policies with policies focused on firms.

Using data from the US & 10 European countries, the OECD LinkEED 2.0 Team analysed the role of firms in the gender wage gap. They find firms account for 10-30% of the gap, mainly reflecting women being more likely to work at firms that pay less to all employees.
cepr.org/voxeu/column...
#EconSky

The gender wage gap and what firms have to do with it 👀

Read the column, covering our paper

We use harmonized data across 11 countries, producing truly comparable results

Working on the gender wage gap? We have a new call for papers for a Special Issue of IR Berkeley. Check it out here: irle.berkeley.edu/publications... @ucberkeleyirle.bsky.social @sriucl.bsky.social

Join us for the workshop "Gender Gaps and Social Norms"
📅 December 4 📍 @upf.edu (Barcelona)
Organized with @libertadgonzalez.bsky.social as part of #MSCA project #Leave4NextGen
Full program with lineup of leading researchers: tinyurl.com/yh62scdj
📧 Register by email: sebastien.fontenay@upf.edu

📚 📣 Are you in the Stockholm area on September 22nd? Come discuss new research about gender gaps in academia at Stockholm University! Email me to sign up. Program below!

Join us at Copenhagen Business School on Sept 29, 2025 for a full-day workshop on Gender Norms, Family Dynamics, and Labor Market Outcomes

🔗 Registration: cbs.nemtilmeld.dk/1289/

Featuring: @libertadgonzalez.bsky.social, @esmeezwiers.bsky.social, @jakobsogaard.bsky.social and more 👇👀

Attention Berlin-based PhDs & early-career researchers!

On 18–19 September, join the RFBerlin Masterclass with Barbara Petrongolo and get the chance to deepen your understanding of The Evolution of Gender in the Labor Market.

Apply by 15 August: www.rfberlin.com/event/rfberl...

Really very happy to attend the NBER SI, and for our paper on the role of firms in explaining the gender wage gap - with harmonized data from 11 countries - to be included in the joint Gender & Labor session this morning!

Come say hi and enjoy @marcogpalladino.bsky.social's presentation!

Such a cool paper!

When I think about interruption at work (and mental load on which we know even less), this is my first reference!

📆 Join us on June 11 at our economics research seminar with Anne Sophie Lassen (@ansolassen.bsky.social), who will present "Earmarking Parental Leave to Fathers: Effects on Beliefs, Norms, and Childcare."

More info and abstract:
www.jku.at/en/departmen...

#EconSky

I really liked Undine (movie, partly set in Berlin) and Madonna in a fur coat (book, set in 1920s Berlin and Ankara)

🚉 —> NBER Spring Meeting on Investments in Early Career Scientists

Looking forward to see some cool projects (www.nber.org/conferences/...) and get feedback on our project ‘Parenthood and the Academic Ladder’ (with @cairosofie.bsky.social @riaivandic.bsky.social @valentinatartari.bsky.social)

Experimental Evidence on the Acceptance of Males Falling Behind Abstract. In recent decades, there has been an increase in the share of males struggling in the labor market and education. We show in a set of large-scale

📚 People are more accepting of men falling behind in work and education—and less supportive of policies to help them. The reason? Many believe it’s due to lack of effort.
🔗 academic.oup.com/jeea/advance...

@nhhnor.bsky.social @nhhecon.bsky.social

🚨🚨 Does labor market discrimination drive economic gaps? Can market competition eliminate discrimination like economic theory suggests? What *kind* of discrimination are we talking about. In a new paper, Alex Willen & I explore the question. #Econsky