Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/223717 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13275
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Generous government-mandated parental leave is generally viewed as an effective policy to support women's careers around childbirth. But does it help women to reach top positions in the upper pay echelon of their firms? Using longitudinal employer-employee matched data for the entire Norwegian population, we address this question exploiting a series of reforms that expanded paid leave from 30 weeks in 1989 to 52 weeks in 1993. The representation of women in top positions has only moderately increased over time, and career profiles of female top earners within firms are significantly different from those of their male counterparts. The reforms did not affect, and possibly decreased, the probability for women to be at the top over their life cycle. We discuss some implications of this result to put into perspective the design of new family-friendly policy interventions.
Subjects: 
top earners
parental leave
women
regression discontinuity
JEL: 
J18
J21
J22
J24
M14
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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