Parental leaves from mothers' and fathers' perspectives

Abstract

Having a baby is a central life transition that does not only affect the family domain but also working life. The talk is going to focus on taking parental leaves. Decision making with respect to parental leaves does not only involve taking into consideration different life domains but also different social partners (e.g., partner, supervisor). In a first step, findings from two multiwave longitudinal studies (one of them combined with a diary approach) with data collected in Germany and Switzerland will be presented. Here, antecedents of mothers’ leave length decisions (e.g., gender-role attitudes), predictors of successful re-entry into working life (e.g., self-management strategies) and consequences of mothers' regrets of having (or not having) returned to work after childbirth will we put to the fore. In the next step, research on fathers’ leave planning and leave experiences (e.g., career-related worries) will be reported. Finally, results from the dyadic modeling of leave-related decision making within couples will be presented.