Fathers, Families, and Society: A Two-Decade Systematic Literature Review on the Contexts and Consequences of Paternity and Parental Leave for Fathers

Abstract

This systematic literature review assesses two decades of the literature on paternity and parental leave for fathers. We developed a conceptual framework that broadens the understanding of why fathers (do not) use paternity and/or parental leave, and the outcomes of men’s leave uptake for fathers, families, and society. Drawing on Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory, we use social, economic, and cultural capital as sensitizing concepts in our analysis. Regarding contextual circumstances, paternity and parental leave most often appear to be used by fathers with higher levels of economic, cultural, and social capital, and with a stronger father identity. With regard to consequences of taking leave, the literature suggests that fathers are not only affected at the micro level (e.g., in their paternal involvement) but also at the meso level (relationship with partner and children) with (potential) consequences at the societal level. We welcome family researchers to further develop and test our conceptual framework when studying the contexts and consequences of paternity leave and parental leave for fathers.

1. Introduction

In recent decades, there has been a noticeable shift in the literature toward the ambitions, needs, and struggles of men and fathers in combining work and care, besides those of women and mothers (Schoppe-Sullivan and Fagan 2020). Paternity and parental leave can help to mitigate work–care conflict. The policy goal of leave is twofold: to strengthen the bond between father and child and to increase equality between fathers and mothers regarding paid work and caregiving (European Commission 2021). Paternity leave (also called birth or partner leave) is granted to the father or recognized second parent immediately post birth. Under EU legislation, the duration of this leave has recently been extended to a minimum of 2 weeks for fathers and recognized second parents.1 Parental leave can be used by either parent over a longer period of time.2 Sweden was the first country to introduce parental leave in 1974 (Brandth and Gislason 2012), and while other Nordic countries followed soon, it was not until the 1990s that countries beyond Scandinavia started to extend the right to (unpaid) parental leave to fathers. Parental leave is generally partly paid,3 and functions as an extension of the existing social security system of parenthood. While many policies are centered at the national level, some countries (including the United States and Canada) only provide leave policies at the state or provincial level (Bartel et al. 2018; Mayer and Le Bourdais 2019). In addition, not all countries make a clear-cut distinction between these types of leave, with parental leave having been subsumed into paternity leave (O’Brien 2009). While there have been tremendous changes in the labor market with women and mothers entering the labor market since the 1960s, men and fathers have not made the same change when it comes to care tasks (England 2010). Parental leave is deemed one of the most important tools for fathers to achieve active parenthood (Pizarro and Gartzia 2024). However, a comprehensive conceptual framework to understand and structure the literature of fathers’ leave taking has been lacking to date.

To give an overview of the literature, we used the following research question to guide our exploration: What are the contextual circumstances that enhance the uptake of paternity leave and parental leave for fathers in social science research published in the last two decades, and which consequences of paternity leave and parental leave for fathers have been documented? Our review is based on a thorough analysis of 108 peer-reviewed papers on this topic published between 2004 and 2024. This research was derived from over 22 European and non-European countries, thereby extending previous research that focused on European contexts only.

During the coding process, we used Bourdieu’s (1983) social reproduction theory and especially his work on economic, social, and cultural capital as ‘sensitizing concepts’. Inspired by its use by Petts et al. (2020b), we found this to be a useful framework. Although Bourdieu understood gender as a social structure that could reproduce socio-economic inequalities, we believe that gender inequalities in work–care behavior can also be mitigated via paternity and parental leave policies, fueling more equal work–care divisions. Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory is hence useful to ‘theoretically anchor’ the findings of the last two decades of studies that are central to our paper.

As processes of leave uptake do not take place in a vacuum and influence fathers, their caring behavior, and their environment, we purposefully included both the contexts and consequences of leave usage, resulting in a broad selection of literature. Most selected studies focused on leave use in a specific policy context, meaning that within these studies, the eligibility criteria for fathers were the same. However, eligibility criteria may differ across studies because policy differs between countries, besides being time-dependent. To facilitate an analysis encompassing multiple jurisdictions and policies, we opted for a bird’s-eye-view approach in which differences in policies and eligibility criteria in the selected studies are not the main focus. Instead, we wanted to provide an encompassing overview in which the different studies can be placed and used as a starting point for future research. To facilitate this process, we offer a brief overview of the current policies and eligibilities of leave taking in the included studies in Section 2.3.

In summary, this systematic literature review brings together the main empirical findings of two decades of research on paternity leave and parental leave for fathers and provides a conceptual framework to understand these findings.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Methodology

We followed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses) protocol for our literature review (Liberati et al. 2009)4. The search engine Web of Science (WoS)5 was used to select academic literature between 2004 and 2023/2024, focusing on peer-reviewed academic papers in English that were not pandemic-related. Papers that were online first before or in 2023 and officially published in 2024 were included. We used ‘paternity leave’ and ‘parental leave & fathers’ as search terms and started by selecting papers from relevant social sciences disciplines (sociology, family studies, women studies, social sciences interdisciplinary, social issues). As we noticed that we missed landmark studies following our initial approach, we broadened our search domains to political science, economics, demography, and public administration, leading up to 500 results. Manually excluding book chapters and conference proceedings decreased the total number of papers to be assessed to 450. The inclusion criteria for the literature review were (1) papers that focused on precursors for the use of paternity leave or parental leave by fathers in opposite-sex relationships; and (2) papers on the outcomes of paternity leave or parental leave for fathers and their families. We focused on the individual-level use of leave and related mechanisms but included factors at the meso (family/work) and macro level (society). We focused on opposite-sex relationships because same-sex couples tend to have a much more egalitarian division of labor (Van der Vleuten et al. 2020), and because the majority of the literature is centered on fathers in opposite-sex relationships (which is also part of the eligibility criteria of leave uptake in some countries).

The selection of papers was performed by the first and third author. First, all 450 abstracts of journal articles were read to assess whether they focused on the contexts or consequences of paternity leave by the first and third author. The papers that we did not agree on were discussed based on the full text. Two papers were unfortunately unavailable to us and not available upon request. We formulated several exclusion criteria beforehand so studies would fit the research question. We excluded papers that focused on fatherhood or masculinity in general (N = 49) and general parenting instead of leave use (N = 22). We also excluded studies on mothers’ use of parental leave (N = 37). Although parental leave is a family entitlement, especially in Nordic and Southern welfare states (Johansson and Andreasson 2017), we focused on fathers’ use of leave, given that quite some research has been carried out on mothers’ leave usage. We also made the decision to focus on the actual use of leave and not on attitudes or intentions to use leave in order to make the studies included more comparable and the eligibility criteria more alike. This led to the exclusion of studies on values or attitudes around parental leave (N = 33). We excluded three outcomes, the gender gap in (future) earnings (N = 23), fertility intentions (N = 18), and child outcomes (N = 8). We excluded the first given that studies on wage inequalities would warrant a more economic embedding. For the other two outcomes, fertility intentions and child outcomes are not at the level of the father, but at the meso level. The division of leave between parents (N = 15) was also excluded, because not all countries make it possible to divide leave between parents. We further excluded pandemic papers (N = 8) because the COVID-19 lockdowns led to an extreme change in parents’ usual work–care routines (Petts et al. 2023). Next, we excluded research on migrant families (N = 7), because of markedly different patterns in parental leave use (Kil et al. 2018). We also excluded papers that focused on the development of national policies and policy reforms instead of individual use of leave (N = 61), papers at the policy level that compared use and policies between countries but did not use individual-level data (N = 43), and papers that focused on organizational policy instead of (sub)national policy (N = 13). Lastly, we excluded two papers on same-sex couples and one research note. This resulted in a total of 108 included studies (see Figure 1).

Given the encountered ambiguities between the two types of leave (O’Brien 2009), we manually coded each study to indicate whether the study concerned paternity (immediately post birth) leave or parental (subsequent) leave. In the metadata file in the Supplementary Material, there is an overview of this manual coding and the exclusion criteria for each paper.

2.2. Description of the Included Studies

From the 108 included studies, we noted important characteristics to give an overview of how the field has evolved and where research has been carried out. As shown in Figure 2, the salience of paternity leave and parental leave for fathers shows an upward trend in the last two decades, as well as, in general, for studies that focused on the contexts and/or consequences of paternity leave and parental leave for fathers. No studies in 2003 or 2004 were found in our search (though studies have been published before 2002), and the only study found in 2005 did not fit the inclusion criteria.

We read 27 qualitative studies, 74 quantitative studies, and 7 studies that used mixed methods. The qualitative studies gave more insight into the mechanisms around leave, while the quantitative studies gave insight into broader trends in society. Most of our selected studies were single-country studies: there were eight studies comparing two countries, a three-country and a four-country study, and three papers that probed seven countries or more. We provide an overview of these countries and studies in

Table 1. Overview of countries in the included studies.

Country	No.	Authors
More than 7 countries	3	Boll et al. (2014); Meil (2013); Omidakhsh et al. (2020)
Australia	3	Hosking et al. (2010); Huerta et al. (2014); Whitehouse et al. (2007)
Austria	2	Mauerer (2023); Schadler et al. (2017)
Belgium	2	Marynissen et al. (2019); Wood et al. (2023)
Brazil	1	Sorj and Fraga (2020)
Canada	11	Beglaubter (2021); Choi (2023); Choroszewicz and Kay (2020); Doucet and McKay (2020); Harvey and Tremblay (2020); Mayer and Le Bourdais (2019); Patnaik (2019); Pettigrew and Duncan (2021); Rehel (2014); Tremblay and Genin (2010); Wray (2020)
Croatia	1	Varga (2021)
Denmark	1	Huerta et al. (2014)
Estonia	1	Tavits et al. (2024)
Finland	5	Choroszewicz and Kay (2020); Duvander et al. (2021); Eerola et al. (2019); Eerola et al. (2022); Närvi and Salmi (2019)
France	1	Pailhé et al. (2024)
Germany	14	Aunkofer et al. (2018); Bünning (2015); Cygan-Rehm et al. (2018); Geisler and Kreyenfeld (2011, 2019); Goldacker et al. (2022); Kluve and Tamm (2013); Reich (2011); Reimer (2020); Samtleben et al. (2019); Schober (2014); Schober and Zoch (2019); Tamm (2019); Wanger and Zapf (2022)
Iceland	5	Arnalds et al. (2013, 2022); Olafsson and Steingrimsdottir (2020); Sigurdardottir and Garðarsdóttir (2018); Lappegård et al. (2020)
Italy	1	Cannito (2020)
Luxembourg	1	Zhelyazkova and Ritschard (2018)
Norway	11	Bergqvist and Saxonberg (2017); Brandth and Kvande (2016, 2018, 2019); Cools et al. (2015); Kotsadam and Finseraas (2011); Lappegård (2008, 2012); Lappegård et al. (2020); Vaagan Moen et al. (2019); Naz (2010)
Poland	1	Suwada (2022)
South Korea	4	Byun and Won (2020); Kim and Kim (2020); Lee (2023a, 2023b)
Spain	9	Arnalds et al. (2022); Escot et al. (2012, 2014); Jurado-Guerrero and Muñoz-Comet (2021); Meil et al. (2023); Moreno-Mínguez et al. (2023a, 2023b); Romero-Balsas et al. (2013, 2021).
Sweden	15	Almqvist and Duvander (2014); Avdic and Karimi (2018); Bergqvist and Saxonberg (2017); Bygren and Duvander (2006); Carlsson and Reshid (2022); Duvander et al. (2024); Ekberg et al. (2013); Eriksson et al. (2022); Haas and Hwang (2008, 2019); Kaufman and Almqvist (2017); Lindström (2013); Marynissen et al. (2019); Duvander et al. (2021); Lappegård et al. (2020)
Switzerland	2	Horvath et al. (2018); Valarino and Gauthier (2016)
United Kingdom	7	Banister and Kerrane (2024); Birkett and Forbes (2019); Huerta et al. (2014); Kaufman (2018); Kaufman and Almqvist (2017); Koslowski and Kadar-Satat (2019); Tanaka and Waldfogel (2007)
United States	19	Barcus et al. (2019); Bartel et al. (2018); Berrigan et al. (2021); Gao and Ruan (2022); Gonalons-Pons (2023); Knoester et al. (2019); Huerta et al. (2014); Nepomnyaschy and Waldfogel (2007); Petts et al. (2020a, 2020b, 2020c); Petts and Knoester (2018, 2019, 2020); Pilkauskas and Schneider (2020); Pragg and Knoester (2017); Seward et al. (2006a, 2006b); Rehel (2014)

. When authors researched more than 1 country, their study was mentioned by all included countries (if there were 6 countries or less). The countries studied most in this regard were the United States (included in 19 papers), Sweden (15 papers), Germany (14 papers), and Norway and Canada (11 papers each).

2.3. Policy Context

This section gives a brief overview of the leave policies and welfare state context of the countries in the selected studies. Parental leave policies can be divided into three sorts according to Brighouse and Olin Wright (2008). First, equality-impeding policies, in other words, unpaid leave. Second, equality-enabling policies, encompassing (partly) paid leave for which either parent is eligible. Third, equality-promoting policies, consisting of (partly) paid parental leave for fathers and mothers separately. In particular, the latter leave, also known as non-transferable leave or fathers’ quota, can be used to promote gender equality in households (see also Kaufman 2020; Patnaik 2019). It should be noted that there have been large developments in countries with regard to paternity and parental leave in the last two decades. Most notably, the EU work–life balance Directive 2019/1158 obliged member states to implement at least 10 days of paid paternity leave and 4 months of parental leave (of which 2 months are non-transferable and partly paid) leave for fathers and mothers by August 2022. This means that the included studies represent different policy and eligibility criteria within countries across time. Our overview is based on the selected literature, the International Leave Network Annual Report, and 2024 OECD data report (Dobrotić et al. 2024; OECD 2024). Where the content of these sources did not align, national policy sources were used to make accurate descriptions. However, it should be kept in mind that policies are rapidly changing at the moment.

In liberal welfare states like Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, governments only offer limited and often means-tested support to families (Esping-Andersen 1990). In these countries, paternity leave policy is at a low benefit level. For example, in Australia, fathers can take 2 weeks of leave at minimum wage, and in the UK, fathers have the right to use 2 weeks at a flat-rate benefit that is a third of the minimum wage. No federal arrangements exist in the United States or Canada for paternity leave. In Australia, parental leave is 24 months, shared between parents, including 18 paid weeks. The UK has 8 months of parental leave, of which 4 months are reserved for fathers. Canada is a bit more generous, with up to 40 weeks of partly paid parental leave, including 5 weeks reserved for the father. Paternity leave uptake is generally low in liberal welfare countries, and mothers take most of the parental leave (Choi 2023; Dobrotić et al. 2024; Birkett and Forbes 2019; Hosking et al. 2010; Petts et al. 2020c).

In the Nordic or socio-democratic welfare states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, the focus is on gender equality in work–care divisions. Paternity leave is subsumed in parental leave in Finland and Iceland. In the other countries, paternity leave is generally 2 weeks and fully paid, followed by extensive parental leave at a high benefit rate (between 6 and 18 months of leave), whereby several months are reserved for the father, the so-called fathers’ quota, in Norway, Iceland and Sweden (Kaufman 2020). In general, there is a high uptake of paternity leave in all countries and a high uptake of parental leave by both fathers and mothers in Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden (Arnalds et al. 2022; Dobrotić et al. 2024; Duvander et al. 2021; Vaagan Moen et al. 2019).

In the so-called conservative welfare states of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, the focus is on family support but not, per definition, on gender equality. As Esping-Andersen (1990) puts it, it is about supporting traditional family values. Luxembourg and Switzerland have two working weeks of paid paternity leave (as specified by the EU directive), while Belgium, France, and Austria have about a month. Germany was one of the first of these countries to introduce two partly paid and non-transferable paternity leave months in 2007 (Aunkofer et al. 2018). In Germany, paternity leave is subsumed in parental leave. The uptake of well-paid paternity leave in conservative welfare countries is generally high. Parental leave, on the other hand, is most often used by mothers. Now, all conservative welfare countries, except for Switzerland, have father-specific leave, whether or not promoted by the EU directive (Aunkofer et al. 2018; Dobrotić et al. 2024; Pailhé et al. 2024; Wood et al. 2023).

In the Mediterranean welfare state, which includes two southern European countries in our study (Spain, Italy), we also see family-focused policies, but historically little focus on gender equality. In Spain, this is changing, as paternity leave has been gradually extended up to 16 weeks of paid leave, compared to 2 weeks in Italy. There is also limited support for parental leave (36 months unpaid until the child is three in Spain and 8 unpaid + 2 paid months in Italy), and uptake by mothers is a lot higher than uptake by fathers (Cannito 2020; Dobrotić et al. 2024; Romero-Balsas et al. 2021)6.

In the included Eastern European countries (post-communist countries) Croatia and Poland, we see the EU-mandated 2 weeks of fully paid paternity leave and 8–9 months of (partly) paid parental leave. From this leave, 9 weeks are father-specific (non-transferable). There is an increasing uptake of paternity leave in Eastern European countries, but a low uptake of parental leave by fathers (Dobrotić et al. 2024; Suwada 2022; Varga 2021).

Countries outside the classic welfare state typology that are included in our study are South Korea and Brazil. South Korea has a 2-week paid paternity leave system and a 1-year government-subsidized parental leave program. Uptake is low though, with mothers using the largest portion of parental leave. Brazil has 5 to 20 days of paternity leave and no parental leave. Both Brazil and South Korea show a strong emphasis on maternal care in debates about leave policies (Dobrotić et al. 2024; Lee 2023a; Sorj and Fraga 2020).

For an extensive overview of the policy and policy developments in each of these countries, we refer to the authors listed in Table 1, two excellent overview papers (Engeman and Burman 2023 on parental leave in advanced democracies; De la Porte et al. 2023 on eligibility conditions), and the International Leave Network Annual Reports (Dobrotić et al. 2024). Although the development of policies is very interesting and warrants a literature review on its own, our literature review explores why fathers (do not) use paternity and/or parental leave within the borders of existing policies and how this affects fathers, families, and society.

2.4. Conceptual Framework

As pointed out by Duffy et al. (2020), the use of parental leave by fathers is a complex issue involving factors at various levels, for which we discern macro (society), meso (family and work), and micro (father) layers. Our initial codebook (see

Table 2. Initial codebook for the literature review.

Levels	Paternity Leave		Parental Leave
	Contexts	Consequences	Contexts	Consequences
Micro (father)
Meso (family and work)
Macro (society)

) was very generally differentiating between contexts and consequences of leave uptake; the difference between paternity leave and parental leave; and the differences between our three levels of analysis. The latter was useful to make sense of the wide array of contextual circumstances that affect fathers in their use of paternity leave and its potential consequences.

We followed Fereday and Muir-Cochrane’s (2006) methodology and performed a hybrid inductive–deductive thematic analysis. After our abstract selection, the first and third author hand-coded the full-texts and discussed the results and themes to come to agreement where necessary. This implies that we read all 108 full texts and noted down the themes in the papers (theories used, empirical results found) in a research sheet (an example can be found in the Appendix A,

Table A1. Overview of countries in the included studies.

Title
Authors
Year
Journal
Keywords
Research question
Study characteristics
Type of leave	Paternity or parental leave
What?	Causes or consequences
Where?	Country, province, or city
When?
Who?
Theory
Theory 1
Theory 2
Methods
Method of analysis
Dataset (if applicable)
Results
Micro
Meso
Macro
Future research

). The deductive part is formed by the initial codebook in Table 2. From the themes that came out of the analysis, we started grouping the outcomes together inductively to come to a better understanding of the matter, looking for patterns in the findings across studies and countries. This led to several theme trees that became more apparent in each round of coding until the current conceptual framework emerged.

During the coding process, we used Bourdieu’s (1983) social reproduction theory, especially economic, social, and cultural capital as ‘sensitizing concepts’ within these levels. Bourdieu understood gender as a social structure that could reproduce socio-economic inequalities (Petts et al. 2020b). Social reproduction theory posits that parents want to boost all forms of capital for their children as to be able to pass down social status and power to the next generation. This is realized through economic, cultural, and social capital, where the latter is also known as habitus. Economic capital is defined by Bourdieu (1983) as the possession of economic resources such as income and property. Translating this to the context of leave use, an important question is whether households can bear the financial consequences of taking leave. Cultural capital is understood as the accumulation of knowledge, behaviors, and cultural experiences that people use to maintain their position in society (Bourdieu 1983), such as education and cultural norms. In looking at leave taking, education can be used as a resource that facilitates leave uptake by fathers. However, education could also transfer cultural norms that enable or discourage leave taking. Lastly, Bourdieu (1983) emphasized the importance of social networks and relationships for the reproduction of status. The subsequent concept of social capital denotes one’s institutionalized relations deriving from all sorts of group memberships. Identity is also an important concept herein, as it is a product of the habitus and shows individuals’ sense of self and their understanding of their place in the social structure (Bourdieu 1983).

Our analytical approach also has limitations, as contextual circumstances and consequences are clearly interwoven across levels. For instance, fathers’ relationships with others (child, partner, etc.) take place at the meso level but have implications for the micro level with regard to identity formation. Similarly, societal norms and values, which are connected to the macro level, might become internalized at the individual level, while micro-level attitudes also constitute broader macro-level norm building. Taking these limitations into account, we abductively built a multilevel framework based on our reading of the literature and Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory for the contexts and consequences of leave (see Figure 3) to order and present the current state of the literature in the next section. For the contexts of leave use, we will present the results from the macro level to the micro level, while the ‘consequence’ or outcome part of our results will be presented from the micro to the macro level (see Figure 3).

2.5. Analysis of Concepts

For each study, we coded the main theories (see meta-datafile). Three theories were mostly used to assess the use of leave, although used under different names. First, Becker’s (1981) home economics theory (also known as specialization theory or relative resources theory) and the related opportunity costs theory. In these theories, partners choose to specialize in work or care based on rational arguments. Second, the resource-bargaining perspective, in which partners use their resources to bargain over involvement in work and care (Lundberg and Pollak 1996). Third, gender role theory, especially ‘doing gender’ and ‘undoing gender’, forms a social constructivist approach toward gender roles and gender identity (West and Zimmerman 1987; Deutsch 2007).

Commonly used models to understand the consequences of leave are Lamb and Pleck’s father involvement conceptualizations (Lamb 1986; Pleck 2012), time allocation models (derived from Becker’s model of specialization), theories regarding caring masculinities (Elliott 2016), and institutional theories that look at the effects of policy design.

In loosely integrating these theories into our conceptual framework, based on Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory, links between the theories become apparent. Becker’s home economic theory can be connected to Bourdieu’s concept of economic capital at the micro level. Bargaining takes place at the meso level and is about the social relations one has with their partner and the economic resources that can be used in these relationships. Gender role and gender identity theories can be grouped together with cultural norms that influence fathers at the micro, meso, and macro level, and they influence cultural capital. Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory and the different levels of analysis gave us the opportunity to further incorporate the findings of two decades of studies into one framework. In the following, we focus on the contextual circumstances in Section 3 and on the consequences in Section 4.

3. Contextual Circumstances of Paternity and Parental Leave Use

In this section, we present the findings from our review of the literature on paternity and parental leave use concerning the contextual circumstances of leave uptake. In the next section, we focus on the consequences of leave uptake within the literature.

Although paternity leave and parental leave policy are not homogenous across countries, the studies included in our literature review concern fathers that are eligible to take leave. For more information about eligibility differences across EU countries, see the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) (2020).

3.1. Macro Level: Public Policy and the Ideal Worker Norm

The use of paternity and parental leave is not only influenced by the micro and meso contexts of fathering and parenting practices but also by the political and legal embedding of such practices within parental leave policies. We therefore distinguished two main themes in our analysis at the macro level: the design of public policies and the ideal worker norm.

3.1.1. Policy Design

National policies are enacted to foster the use of paternity leave, depending on the welfare state they derive from (see Section 2.3). Policies are generally drafted to support families or to enhance gender equality in work and care. Connected to these, we discerned two dimensions to paternity and parental leave uptake at the macro level: the length of leave and the level of benefit (Hosking et al. 2010). Karu and Tremblay (2018) showed that the uptake of parental leave only reaches a reasonably high level in countries that have established a combination of reserved leave for fathers with high benefit levels. Making leave more generous leads to higher uptake. In the Southern European welfare state Spain, leave uptake increased after the introduction of the 13-day paternity leave (Escot et al. 2014). The further extension to a month of paternity leave has also closed social gaps in uptake, because it is perceived as more legitimate to take leave (Jurado-Guerrero and Muñoz-Comet 2021). After the introduction of paid paternity leave in the state of California (CA-PFL), men were 46 percent more likely to take leave than previously, when leave had been unpaid (Bartel et al. 2018). The top-ups in Sweden also increased the use of parental leave, although more among high-income fathers than among low-income fathers (Duvander et al. 2024). Furthermore, when Iceland reduced the maximum payment for parental leave during the economic crisis, the use of parental leave by fathers decreased (Sigurdardottir and Garðarsdóttir 2018). Also, in Poland (Suwada 2022), Belgium and Sweden (Marynissen et al. 2019), and Canada (Mayer and Le Bourdais 2019), it was found that the opportunity structures created by the policy design in these countries help or hinder couples in achieving a more equal work–care division.

Another option for policymakers is to reserve part of the parental leave for fathers. According to research, ‘gender neutral’ parental leave schemes do not seem to promote greater uptake among fathers (O’Brien 2009). Indeed, reserved parental leave is found to be more effective in increasing fathers’ use of leave (Arnalds et al. 2013; Avdic and Karimi 2018). In the UK, however, the conditions surrounding reserved parental leave were found to be a barrier by fathers (Kaufman 2018), as the maternal take on the Shared Parental Leave policy hindered fathers in taking their share (Banister and Kerrane 2024).

In summary, policy contexts that create eligibility criteria for men to use parental leave are important. In different countries with different welfare and policy regimes, we see that the policy practice to extend paternity and parental leave and to provide higher benefits leads to higher uptake. This echoes Bourdieu’s ideas of decreasing inequalities through providing resources. Leave benefits can be seen as a resource provided by the government.

3.1.2. Ideal Worker Norm

Cultural norms in a country or work organization can affect parental leave use, especially where paternity leave is linked to ideas of lower productivity, lack of commitment, and reduced masculinity (Grau-Grau and André 2024). This is known as the ideal worker norm, embodying the image of an ‘always available and committed worker’ that has no family responsibilities and puts work first. Although most OECD countries have implemented paternity and parental leave policies, the use of these public policies are affected by cultural norms surrounding fatherhood (see, e.g., Bergqvist and Saxonberg 2017). Several studies have found a negative association between stronger ideal worker norms (sometimes operationalized as less family-friendly policies) and parental leave uptake for fathers (Barcus et al. 2019; Birkett and Forbes 2019; Eriksson et al. 2022; Choi 2023; Haas and Hwang 2019; Kaufman and Almqvist 2017; Koslowski and Kadar-Satat 2019; Närvi and Salmi 2019; Naz 2010; Reimer 2020; Romero-Balsas et al. 2013; Wray 2020), although others have found no effect from these norms (Samtleben et al. 2019). Brandth and Kvande (2019) showed that the design of the parental leave policy in Norway also attributed to a supportive work environment. This norm setting can also be seen in the study by Mauerer (2023), who showed that the design of parental leave in Austria helped fathers and mothers overcome traditional gender expectations in combining work and family.

To conclude, policies can have a norm-setting role, signaling the social acceptability of using parental leave. The ideal worker norm, which is more or less present in public policies at the macro level, and the norm-setting role of the government are important socializing environments for the social reproduction of gender (in)equalities in leave use.

3.2. Meso Level: Families and Work

In this section, we focus on two important meso-level contexts that influence leave uptake for fathers, which are the family they are forming and the organization they work for.

3.2.1. Families: The Mother of the Child

Cultural norms are an integral part of cultural capital; furthermore, the sharing of economic resources takes place in the family. Research on the effect of the mother of the child on fathers’ leave use is mixed. Whitehouse et al. (2007) found that paternity leave use is not affected by mothers’ employment characteristics. By contrast, Escot et al. (2014) found a positive association with spousal employment, and so did Moreno-Mínguez et al. (2023b). Fathers were more likely to use paternity leave when the relationship with the mother was better, and men who were married and/or cohabited with their children’s mothers were more likely to use parental leave than non-resident fathers (Huerta et al. 2014; Nepomnyaschy and Waldfogel 2007; Petts and Knoester 2018; Pragg and Knoester 2017). It is important to note that being married is an eligibility condition for leave policies in some countries, like South Korea and Brazil.

With regard to the link between mother’s characteristics and parental leave, research has yielded mixed results. While most research has indicated a positive association between being married and leave uptake (Lappegård 2008; Naz 2010), some studies have not found such a link (Lappegård 2012) or found a negative association (Geisler and Kreyenfeld 2011; Mayer and Le Bourdais 2019). In Italy and Germany, it was found that mothers’ attitudes and preferences regarding parental leave were important for the decisions that fathers made (Cannito 2020; Reimer 2020). Regarding mothers’ income, some studies found positive effects of mothers’ income on fathers’ parental leave uptake (Birkett and Forbes 2019; Duvander et al. 2021; Naz 2010; Reich 2011). However, Lappegård (2008) reported a negative effect of mothers’ income on fathers’ leave uptake, and Barcus et al. (2019) found a negative effect of having a non-employed partner on fathers’ leave uptake. The effect of income similarities between partners has also been explored, showing that more similar incomes lead to higher uptake rates by fathers (Lappegård 2008, 2012; Wood et al. 2023). Interestingly enough, when Eerola et al. (2019) investigated the motivation for leave use, taking care of the child was the most mentioned motivation for uptake, but taking a break from work and helping the mother to get back to work were more important factors for leave length.

Social support is thus a two-way street: the mother can support the father in taking leave, and the father can feel that he is helping the mother return to work by taking leave. Both of these forms of social support enhance gender equality in combining work and care. Partners are putting their economic and cultural resources into the relationship to help each other and thus increase each other’s social capital to find their best work–care combination. When the mother has more economic capital, this also makes it more likely that the father makes use of parental leave. Whether this is through bargaining, a relative resource mechanism, or more egalitarian norms is yet unclear.

3.2.2. Fathers’ Workplace

The workplace, following Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory, is a site where gender and socio-economic inequalities can be increased or decreased. The sector and type of organization that fathers work in have the potential to affect fathers’ paternity leave uptake through various mechanisms. Organizations have cultural norms that can foster leave or can increase eligibility or financial renumerations for taking leave. Studies have found that fathers working in the public sector were more likely to take paternity leave than fathers working in the private sector (Escot et al. 2014; Whitehouse et al. 2007). This could indicate that public sector organizations have more family-friendly policies. Although government-mandated paternity leave is generally accepted by organizations (Harvey and Tremblay 2020), fathers with managerial responsibilities were less likely to bring their paternity leave plans to fruition, compared to those without managerial responsibilities (Horvath et al. 2018).

With regard to parental leave, links between the professional organization and leave uptake have also been studied. Fathers working in the public sector were found to use parental leave more and longer than fathers working in the private sector or the self-employed (Bygren and Duvander 2006; Geisler and Kreyenfeld 2011, 2019; Lappegård 2012; Reich 2011). Working in a larger organization is positively correlated with parental leave uptake (Bygren and Duvander 2006; Lappegård 2012; Zhelyazkova and Ritschard 2018). Pettigrew and Duncan (2021) showed that managers, compared to employees without management tasks, are less positive about the use of parental leave by men. This concurs with Vaagan Moen et al. (2019) who showed that different logics around availability are used in different sectors and influence leave use. In general, it was found that when fathers fear professional repercussions, they are less likely to take (longer) parental leave (Aunkofer et al. 2018; Choroszewicz and Tremblay 2018; Kaufman 2018; Samtleben et al. 2019; Tremblay and Genin 2010). However, the work environment can also be a positive resource. When co-workers take longer leaves, ‘new’ parents will also take longer leaves (Carlsson and Reshid 2022). This indicates that colleagues share information about leave use with each other, which might contribute to workplace-specific norms regarding leave use.

The results show that there are strong sectoral effects for leave usage. Leave usage is partly related to organizational policy and partly ingrained in cultural norms. The workplace can thus be a place in which the use and non-use of leave can be reproduced through everyday interactions with managers and co-workers. A supportive organizational environment can be part of the social capital that fathers can use to engage in leave taking.

3.3. Micro Level: Fathers

The final level we discerned is the micro level, being the individual level at which fathers make decisions about (not) using paternity and parental leave. Bourdieu’s (1983) framework encompasses the interplay of economic, cultural, and social capital. To understand the contexts of fathers’ use of paternity and/or parental leave at the micro level, we categorized the empirical findings according to three forms: economic capital (work, income and precarity), cultural capital (education and cultural norms), and social capital (relationships and identity).

3.3.1. Fathers’ Economic Capital: Employment, Income, and Precarity

Although the financial consequences of paternity leave during the first week(s) after the birth of the child are limited for most fathers, studies have found that higher-income occupations are associated with higher uptake rates of paternity leave, especially in liberal welfare state countries in which the government is less extensive in its family support (Huerta et al. 2014; Petts and Knoester 2018, 2020; Petts et al. 2020a, 2020b; Whitehouse et al. 2007). Interesting enough, the fathers of first-born children are more likely to use paternity leave in the US and Australia, which may indicate the economic necessity of fathers who already have children to keep working in order to support their family (Nepomnyaschy and Waldfogel 2007; Whitehouse et al. 2007). That fulltime working fathers are more likely to use paternity leave (Petts et al. 2020c; Valarino and Gauthier 2016) may be because fathers who work parttime already spend more time at home, but it may also be a sign of economic precarity. In Spain, however, it was found that high-income men were less likely to use paternity leave compared to low-income men (Escot et al. 2012). This could indicate a U-shaped relationship between income and leave use or an effect of different welfare state regimes.

Many studies have found a positive link between fathers’ income and parental leave uptake by fathers (Choi 2023; Eerola et al. 2019; Lappegård 2008, 2012; Sorj and Fraga 2020). Interesting enough, in Luxembourg, lower-earning fathers were found to be more likely to make use of parental leave (Zhelyazkova and Ritschard 2018), which can be related to the full pay fathers are eligible for when taking leave. In the UK, Kaufman (2018) showed that economic motives were the largest factor steering parents’ decisions regarding paternity leave. Other work-related circumstances of fathers that were connected to greater use of parental leave included working fewer hours (Haas and Hwang 2008) and permanent employment (Geisler and Kreyenfeld 2019).

In general, fathers with more economic capital are more likely to make use of paternity leave. Following Bourdieu’s social reproduction framework, this economic capital can take the shape of income or a permanent contract, leading to less precarity and more options for leave usage.

3.3.2. Fathers’ Cultural Capital: Education and Cultural Norms

Bourdieu posited that education can provide the cultural capital required to reduce inequalities. Is this also the case when it comes to the use of paternity leave? The idea is that more education leads to more equalizing ideas about sharing leave and childcare. Petts et al. (2020b) found that cultural capital increased the likelihood of fathers using paternity leave. The same was found by Huerta et al. (2014) in a multi-country study. This means that beyond income (economic capital), education as a form of cultural capital is important for leave-taking behavior. Considering cultural norms, some studies reported that egalitarian views were not significant for paternity leave use (Hosking et al. 2010; Seward et al. 2006a), while others found that egalitarian views were associated with increased paternity leave use (Berrigan et al. 2021).

Regarding parental leave, the educational levels of fathers (Geisler and Kreyenfeld 2019; Haas and Hwang 2008) as well as mothers (Haas and Hwang 2008; Naz 2010) were positively correlated with parental leave use. Some studies mentioned a positive association between dual high education and parental leave use (Geisler and Kreyenfeld 2011; Lappegård 2008, 2012; Moreno-Mínguez et al. 2023a). Looking at cultural norms, Cannito (2020) showed that fathers with more egalitarian norms also use more parental leave. Banister and Kerrane (2024) found that many fathers in their study wanted to be more present than their own fathers, especially when their own fathers had been traditional and less involved during the participants’ childhood. This led to fathers using the available parental leave, even when cultural norms were not supportive. Lindström (2013) found that Swedish fathers took a bit more leave for a first-born son compared to a first-born daughter, suggesting the possibility that fathers want to help in transferring gender-specific (‘masculine’) capital.

In summary, the literature indicates that fathers with more cultural capital in the form of education and egalitarian cultural norms are more likely to use paternity leave and parental leave.

3.3.3. Fathers’ Social Capital: Relationships and Identity

Lastly, Bourdieu (1983) emphasized the importance of one’s social capital (e.g., relationships), which is also connected to one’s identity. Like other social behaviors, fatherhood is internalized and reproduced. The idea of role modeling can also be derived from a study by Pragg and Knoester (2017), who found that fathers were more likely to use paternity leave if the relationship with their own father was better. Identity is an important concept as well, as it is a product of habitus and shows individuals’ understanding of their place in the social structure (Bourdieu 1983). Pragg and Knoester (2017) showed that positive ideas about being a father (father identity) had a positive influence on the use of paternity leave.

With regard to parental leave, it was found that parental leave was used most by first-time fathers and fathers with more children, meaning more care tasks at home (Lappegård 2008; Mayer and Le Bourdais 2019; Whitehouse et al. 2007). This could also be a response to parenting in a society in which male leave uptake has become more socially acceptable. Indeed, research has shown that fathers in Canada who had a more positive view of gender equality were more likely to use parental leave (Pettigrew and Duncan 2021). This resonates with findings on fathers in Croatia, where the desire to be involved in the child’s upbringing was found to be an important motivation for parental leave use (Varga 2021). Meanwhile, fathers in Korea felt constrained by their identity as workers, meaning they were less likely to use parental leave (Kim and Kim 2020).

In summary, identity-relevant relationships and fathers’ identity play a role in paternity leave uptake and the length of paternity leave. Although identities are already formed to a certain extent before men become fathers, identity formation is a never-ending process that keeps evolving after becoming a parent. The more ‘being a father’ is part of a man’s identity, the more fathers show leave-taking behavior, which is congruent with their father identity and their habitus.

4. Consequences of Paternity and Parental Leave Uptake

Contextual circumstances aside, studies have investigated the impact of paternity leave and parental leave for fathers on various outcomes. In this section, we discuss the research findings on the ‘consequences’ of leave uptake for fathers (micro level), families (meso level), and society (macro level). These consequences are correlational in nature.

4.1. Micro Level: Fathers’ Involvement, Identity, and Work

Based on our initial coding scheme, we grouped all individual outcomes into three main groups of outcomes: fathers’ involvement in childcare, fathers’ identity and identity development, and fathers’ work outcomes.

4.1.1. Fathers’ Involvement in Childcare

One of the most important policy goals of leave for fathers, especially in the Nordic and conservative welfare states, is to increase fathers’ involvement in childcare. Fathers’ involvement can be divided into accessibility, responsibility, and availability (Lamb 1986; Pleck 2012) but is also measured through caretaking activities and shared responsibilities (Nepomnyaschy and Waldfogel 2007; Pilkauskas and Schneider 2020). Research has indeed shown that paternity leave leads to increased involvement by the father. For instance, a study by Huerta et al. (2014) on four countries showed that fathers who take leave were more likely to be involved fathers. Seward et al. (2006b) found this to be true for certain childcare tasks but not for time spent with the child or taking responsibility for childcare. However, Hosking et al. (2010) found no effect of leave uptake on quality time and sole caregiving time. In Quebec, the reserved paternity leave policy led to a direct increase in fathers’ responsibility time but not to an increase in fathers’ engagement or accessibility time (Wray 2020). Moreover, a longer period of paternity leave is associated with more frequent father engagement in developmental activities and caretaking (Doucet and McKay 2020; Knoester et al. 2019; Lee 2023b; Nepomnyaschy and Waldfogel 2007; Petts and Knoester 2018; Pailhé et al. 2024; Pilkauskas and Schneider 2020; Schober 2014; Tanaka and Waldfogel 2007).

Studies on parental leave uptake and fathers’ involvement have yielded mixed results. A positive relationship between the length of leave and father involvement in childcare was found in most studies (Arnalds et al. 2013, 2022; Boll et al. 2014; Gao and Ruan 2022; Haas and Hwang 2008; Meil et al. 2023; Romero-Balsas et al. 2021). Some authors did not find a positive relationship between leave uptake and involvement. Ekberg et al. (2013) suggested that Sweden’s reserved parental leave policy reform did not increase fathers’ involvement, and Brandth and Kvande (2016) found the same for Norway’s flexible parental leave. In Korea, fathers’ use of parental leave somewhat increased fathers’ caregiving but not as much as could be expected. Some Korean fathers were found to use the leave to get rest or to work on career development, while the children were cared for by others (Byun and Won 2020).

To conclude, father involvement is a broad concept, encompassing multiple aspects of the child–father relationship, but, in general, a positive relationship is found. Leave usage can be seen as countering the social reproduction of inequalities between men and women in the household.

4.1.2. Fathers’ Identity

A (strong) father identity is not only a context of leave uptake but is also a potential consequence, as parental leave can help fathers to form caregiving identities. Fathers who took longer leave were found to have a more positive attitude toward active fatherhood (Haas and Hwang 2008) and the sharing of household tasks (Mayer and Le Bourdais 2019). Romero-Balsas et al. (2021) found that parental leave contributed to bridging the gap between the traditional masculine work culture and a more ‘caring identity’ of fatherhood. Doucet and McKay (2020) also found that using parental leave can ‘disrupt’ masculine work norms. Moreover, Beglaubter (2021) found that fathers who were personally moved by parental leave were the most likely to incorporate fatherhood into their identity. Brandth and Kvande (2018) showed that leave-taking fathers reported having new experiences, including increased feelings of self-esteem and feelings of being appreciated by the child, pointing to the existence of ‘caring masculinity’ identities among fathers. Petts et al. (2020a) also found that short periods of leave may enable fathers to meet culture-based expectations of being both an involved father and a provider, shielding fathers from negative career consequences. However, longer periods of leave are harder to combine with the ideal worker norm.

In short, fathers’ identity is simultaneously a precondition for and a consequence of leave use and can thus be seen as part of the reproduction framework of parental leave and caring masculinities.

4.1.3. Fathers’ Work Outcomes

Regarding fathers’ work outcomes after taking parental leave, studies have reported that fathers worked fewer hours or used flexible work arrangements more often after taking parental leave (Arnalds et al. 2022; Wanger and Zapf 2022). Tamm (2019), however, found that this reduction in working hours was restricted to the period that parents were eligible for parental leave benefits, and also, Cools et al. (2015) found no effect of leave taking on work hours. Lee (2023a) found divergent reactions from South Korean fathers after taking leave, with some fathers changing their work hours to care hours, while other fathers reverted to their work-centric lifestyle.

To conclude, results are mixed, but most fathers do not drastically change their work behavior after using parental leave. Relating this to our conceptual framework, we can tentatively conclude that parental leave is not used as a form of capital to negotiate different work circumstances to better combine work and care.

4.2. Meso Level: Relationships with Mother and Child and Division of Care

In this section, we split the literature into two outcomes, the relationship with the mother and child and the division of care between parents.

4.2.1. Relationship with Mother and Child

Several studies have focused on family outcomes. Fathers’ use of paternity leave is positively associated with a better father–child relationship, increased relationship satisfaction, relationship stability, and decreased parental conflict and relationship dissolution (Goldacker et al. 2022; Petts et al. 2020a; Petts and Knoester 2019, 2020).

For parental leave, Haas and Hwang’s (2008) showed a positive effect of parental leave uptake on fathers’ satisfaction vis-à-vis the father–child relationship. Equal to paternity leave, the risk of marriage dissolution was lower when the father used longer parental leave (Cygan-Rehm et al. 2018; Lappegård et al. 2020; Olafsson and Steingrimsdottir 2020). However, Avdic and Karimi (2018) reported that the Swedish parental leave reform led to an increased risk of separation. The authors theorized that the reform led to earlier separations rather than separations that would have not occurred without parental leave.

Overall, positive effects of leave uptake have been observed on relationship stability and on the father’s relationship with the mother, both for paternity and parental leave uptake. Circling back to Bourdieu’s social reproduction framework, it could be theorized that parental leave can be used as a resource to maintain more stable social relationships.

4.2.2. Division of Care

Although involvement in childcare is an individual level-outcome, the division of care takes place at the meso level. Since the division of care is a longer-term outcome, and the potential effects of paternity leave usage on housework and care divisions are difficult to gauge, this section focuses on parental leave. Studies showed that fathers who used leave were more likely to spend more time on childcare than they did before taking leave, irrespective of the duration of leave (Boll et al. 2014; Bünning 2015; Gonalons-Pons 2023; Meil 2013; Rehel 2014). Accordingly, extended time off provided fathers with the opportunity to cultivate parenting skills and foster a greater sense of responsibility for parenting with the mother, which potentially led to more egalitarian divisions of work and care (Eerola et al. 2022; Rehel 2014). On the other hand, two studies found no association between length of leave and work–care divisions (Kluve and Tamm 2013; Patnaik 2019). An explanation could be that mothers are less willing to reduce childcare time than the time they allocate to other household duties (Patnaik 2019).

Several studies confirmed the positive association between fathers’ leave use and more equal divisions of household tasks (Bünning 2015; Gonalons-Pons 2023; Kotsadam and Finseraas 2011; Meil 2013; Patnaik 2019). Patnaik (2019) found that taking leave had a large and persistent effect on the division of household tasks, as households became less gender-specialized. Moreover, Bünning (2015) found that only fathers who took long solo leave increased their participation in housework in Germany. The use of (longer) parental leave by fathers also leads to a more equal division of childcare and housework (Almqvist and Duvander 2014; Schober and Zoch 2019; Tamm 2019), although this can be dependent on the interplay of partner and work factors (Schadler et al. 2017).

In summary, paternity and parental leave uptake by fathers seem to result in more equal divisions of childcare and household tasks between parents. Parental leave can thus potentially help decrease the social reproduction of gender inequality in work and care.

4.3. Macro Level: The Ideal Carer Norm and Gender Equality

The main policy goals of leave policies are enhancing gender equality and father involvement (Feldman and Gran 2016). Societal outcomes are derived from the sum of individual attitudes and behaviors; hence, societal change can only occur when micro-level changes take place. Since the studies selected were at the micro level, we can only gauge the possible macro-level outcomes that can occur through extending eligibility to paternity and parental leave use, and the leave use itself.

We found three studies showing that amendments to policy or leave use were associated with changes toward egalitarian attitudes among both men and women (Omidakhsh et al. 2020; Tavits et al. 2024; Valarino and Gauthier 2016). Patnaik’s (2019) study suggested that increased use of parental leave by fathers can counter the negative effects of maternity leave, by allowing mothers to return to work earlier and by reducing employers’ incentives to hire and invest more in men than in women (Patnaik 2019).

With changing attitudes toward more egalitarian views, and changing behavior with higher uptake of paternity and parental leave and higher father involvement, it is possible that cultural norms regarding work–care divisions will change through the introduction and use of fathers’ leave policies. Arguably, we are currently in the midst of a societal transformation from an ‘ideal worker norm’ toward an ‘ideal carer’ norm.

5. Discussion: Strengths and Limitations

Regarding the theoretical–methodological contribution of our review, we developed a conceptual framework based on Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory, with a multilevel structure to order our studies. Bourdieu’s theory offers a compelling framework to understand the persistence of social inequalities across generations. A multilevel perspective is much needed in mapping the different layers of society, the interactions between them, and the ways in which these layers create different habitus for men who (do not) engage with paternity and parental leave regulations. The different cultural norms and behaviors circulating within fathers’ different social environments can enhance or restrict fathers’ leave usage. Based on these notions, we provide a comprehensive overview of the empirical research carried out on fathers’ relationships with work, family, and society in the last two decades. Our goal was to lay bare understudied connections within the literature and to inform researchers from a wide array of fields. Although Bourdieu’s framework functioned as a ‘sensitizing concept’ in the construction of our conceptual model, our findings and model were induced from the results of selected studies, as analyzed in this paper. We welcome other researchers to further develop our conceptual framework and test it in practice.

There are some limitations to our study. First, our division of paternity and parental leave felt restrictive at times, which begs the question whether the apparent differences in findings between paternity and parental leave are derived from leave type or from differences between countries or samples. We tried to overcome this by manually coding each study not only on grounds of terminology usage but also on content (the actual leave taking studied). A second limitation is that, given our bird’s-eye-view approach, our review has not explicitly strengthened the potential connections between research findings and the (past and current) policies and regulations of the countries whose empirical research findings were discussed. Comparative in-depth country comparisons would be very beneficial to this end, for example, by comparing policy changes and their effects within different welfare state regimes. Furthermore, from a methodological perspective, the exclusion of book chapters and white/gray literature (e.g., policy papers) inevitably limited our scope. The same can be said with regard to the use of Web of Science as the sole database for study selection. For instance, studies on Portugal (a country that also has a rich research tradition on paternity and parental leave, see, for example, Wall and Leitão 2017) were not included. Because of our selection criteria, the list of probed countries in this study was not an exhaustive representation of all countries in which research on paternity and parental leave for fathers has been carried out to date. Lastly, we restricted ourselves to studies that focused on fathers’ individual use of paternity and parental leave, which means that more work is needed to substantively build the macro level of our multilevel framework.

All in all, we contend that our overview of the literature and conceptual framework has the potential to guide future research toward the use and outcomes of paternity and parental leave use for fathers, families, and society.

6. Conclusion and Future Research for Fathers, Families, and Society

Although we focused on the literature on fathers at the micro level and their connections to work, family, and society, future systematic reviews of fatherhood literature might want to broaden the research scope to academic output in which fathers (alone) are not the main focus. Based on our reading and our conceptual framework, we established three points for future research.

First, the impact of role models on fatherhood is worth probing. An important question at the family level is whether fathers have role models for their leave behavior, and if so, from which contexts these role models arise. Pragg and Knoester (2017) showed that fathers who have better relationships with their own fathers are more likely to take leave, and Banister and Kerrane (2024) showed that fathers want to do things differently than their own fathers if the latter exhibited traditional work–care divisions. Future studies might want to look at the interplay between role modeling and fatherhood, as this would lead to a more holistic understanding of the different contexts in which fathers use leave. One of the main sources of capital according to Bourdieu is education. Based on our conceptual model and findings in the literature review, it could be interesting to further study how caring masculinities can be transferred through education (Holtermann et al. 2024), and whether education is found to have a lasting influence on men’s (future) leave usage.

A second avenue for future systematic reviews on this topic is to probe the interaction between the family and the work domain. A systematic review of the literature focusing on how companies’ family-friendly policies and work culture interact can offer an overview of how these interactions are believed to affect fathers and mothers (Suwada 2022). It would be particularly interesting to see whether past studies compared supervisors or departments within the same organization, as this may enable us to discern how these actors influence fathers in a multilevel framework and how they interact with family characteristics.

Third, future systematic reviews might want to include literature on the relationship between individual leave taking and socio-political conditions, as this was not part of the present study. Insights into these conditions are nevertheless important, as governments are believed to provide structural opportunities for fathers to convert their work–care attitudes into work–care behavior. Indeed, Romero-Balsas et al. (2013) found a gap between the increasingly positive attitudes of fathers toward fatherhood in Spain and the fact that these attitudes are not reflected within policy and legal frameworks. A more systematic understanding of the entity of literature on these micro–macro interactions is needed. Such a systematic review would ideally include longitudinal or legal-comparative studies within countries, since leave types have also changed over time with new regulations forming new possibilities (and restrictions) for fathers and families.