metadata: authors: 0: author: Querejeta Rabosto,Martina
1: author: Olivieri,Cecilia
2: author: Tomio,Andrea Ailin
3: author: Castaneda Nunez,Jorge Luis
4: author: Munoz Boudet,Ana Maria
count: Uruguay,Argentina
docna: 0: docna: Sharing Parental Leave between Mothers and
            Fathers : Experimental Evidence from a Messaging
            Intervention in Uruguay
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
abstracts: cdata!: Parental leave has been increasingly
            used as a family policy to facilitate balancing care and
            work responsibilities and promoting gender equality.
            However, fathers' parental leave participation is still
            low, even when it offers both job and wage protection. This
            paper examines the effects of an information and
            awareness-raising intervention, delivered via email and text
            messages on men&#x2019;s and women&#x2019;s
            awareness and intentions of shared take-up of a parental
            leave program. The experiment provided recent and
            prospective parents meeting the social security requirements
            to benefit from parental leave with information about the
            program. Additionally, a subset of recent parents received
            messages that told them about (i) the benefits of
            fathers&#x2019; involvement in childcare, or (ii) the
            importance of planning parental childcare. The intervention
            was successful in increasing knowledge about the parental
            leave program and shifting traditional gender norm views
            among women, regarding father&#x2019;s involvement and
            care planning. For men, knowledge about the program
            increased. However, the strong association between parental
            leave and breastfeeding led to fathers privileging
            mothers&#x2019; use of the leave benefit. The findings
            show limited impact on actual leave taking, with the message
            about couples&#x2019; leave planning increasing the
            effective use of parental leave among fathers compared to
            the information message. The results show that low-cost,
            targeted information interventions can have substantial
            effects on program knowledge among potential future
            beneficiaries. Although these interventions can support more
            equal gender roles and change gendered attitudes toward care
            responsibilities, they are not sufficient to shift behaviors.
display_title: Sharing Parental Leave between
            Mothers and Fathers : Experimental Evidence from a Messaging
            Intervention in Uruguay
listing_relative_url: /research/2023/03/34015996/sharing-parental-leave-between-mothers-fathers-experimental-evidence-messaging-intervention-uruguay
topicv3: Paternity Leave m1326043 1647,Gender m1327621 615,Behavioral Initiatives for Poverty
            Reduction and Equity m1503826 3746,Labor Market Analysis m1582757 4428
publishtoextweb_dt: 2023-03-06T00:00:00Z
dois: 10.1596/1813-9450-10430
origu: Off of Sr VP Dev Econ/Chief Econ (DECVP)
author_keys: 0: author_key: 2085212
1: author_key: NA
2: author_key: 1972578
3: author_key: 1418724
4: author_key: 950872
model_extractions: Policy Research Working Paper 10340 Sharing Parental Leave between Mothers and Fathers Experimental Evidence from a Messaging Intervention in Uruguay _Martina Querejeta Cecilia Olivieri Ailin Tomio_ _Jorge Luis Castaneda Ana Maria Munoz Boudet_ Poverty and Equity Global Practice March 2023
Policy Research Working Paper 10340

# **Abstract**

Parental leave has been increasingly used as a family policy to facilitate balancing care and work responsibilities and promoting gender equality. However, fathers’ parental leave participation is still low, even when it offers both job and wage protection. This paper examines the effects of an information and awareness-raising intervention, delivered via email and text messages on men’s and women’s awareness and intentions of shared take-up of a parental leave program. The experiment provided recent and prospective parents meeting the social security requirements to benefit from parental leave with information about the program. Additionally, a subset of recent parents received messages that told them about (i) the benefits of fathers’ involvement in childcare, or (ii) the importance of planning parental childcare. The intervention was successful in increasing knowledge about the parental leave program and shifting traditional gender norm views among women, regarding father’s involvement and care planning. For men, knowledge about the program increased. However, the strong association between parental leave and breastfeeding led to fathers privileging mothers’ use of the leave benefit. The findings show limited impact on actual leave taking, with the message about couples’ leave planning increasing the effective use of parental leave among fathers compared to the information message. The results show that low-cost, targeted information interventions can have substantial effects on program knowledge among potential future beneficiaries. Although these interventions can support more equal gender roles and change gendered attitudes toward care responsibilities, they are not sufficient to shift behaviors.

This paper is a product of the Poverty and Equity Global Practice. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at amunozboudet@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
# **Sharing Parental Leave between Mothers and Fathers: Experimental**

# **Evidence from a Messaging Intervention in Uruguay**<sup>*****</sup>

Querejeta, Martina, Olivieri, Cecilia, Tomio, Ailin, Castaneda, Jorge Luis, Muñoz B., Ana María<sup>1</sup> JEL Classification: D13, D90, J13, J16, J18, I38 Keywords: Parental leave, gender norms, messages, behavioral, intrahousehold.

> * The authors of this paper conducted their research under the project _Compartiendo los cuidados entre padres y madres: uso del subsidio de medio horario en Uruguay_ , a joint initiative between the World Bank, UN Women, Universidad de la República (UdelaR), and Banco de Previsión Social (BPS) in Uruguay. The project is co-led by Marisa Bucheli (UdelaR), Magdalena Furtado (UN Women) and Lourdes Rodriguez-Chamussy (World Bank). Special thanks for their ideas and contributions to the design and implementation of the study in Uruguay. We are grateful to Alicia Echeverrigaray, Felix Bellomo, Silvia Santos, and all the BPS team involved since early stages of the project. Finally, we acknowledge Mariana Mojica’s outstanding assistance and support in the different stages of the project. The activity was financed by the Latin America and the Caribbean Gender Innovation Lab (LACGIL) with funds from the World Bank’s Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE).

1 Authors’ affiliations: Universidad de la República Uruguay, Universidad de la República Uruguay, The World Bank, The World Bank, The World Bank.
# **1. Introduction**

Parental leave has been increasingly proposed as a family policy to facilitate balancing care responsibilities and promoting gender equality in the distribution of care tasks. Unlike maternal and paternal leave schemes that target one parent, parental leave is designed to be used by mothers and fathers to share care responsibilities. Evidence shows that fathers' leave take-up increases their involvement in childcare and housework, and these effects persist after several years (Tamm, 2019; Almqvist and Duvander, 2014; Schober, 2014; Kotsadam and Finseraas, 2011). Moreover, father involvement in childcare has positive effects on a child's cognitive and non-cognitive development (Cano et al., 2019; Lamb, 2010; Cabrera et al., 2007; Amato and Rivera, 1999), on the mental well-being of both mother and child (Twamley et al., 2013), and on gender equity (Evertsson et al., 2018; Coltrane, 1996). However, fathers' leave take-up is still low. Across the world fathers’ use of the benefit, when available to them, is low unless mandated (Karu and Tremblay, 2018).<sup>2</sup> Evidence shows that financial reasons, career penalties (Twamley and Schober, 2019), and fathers' identity and reputational concerns (Weisshaar, 2018; Dahl et al., 2014) are among the take-up barriers to paternity (or parental) leave. Uruguay is no exception. Despite the introduction of a parental leave program in 2013 that allows either parent to work half-time while receiving full-time pay for four months, fathers account for only 2% of total beneficiaries (BPS, 2021).

This paper investigates the effects of an intervention to improve the awareness and knowledge of the parental leave program and increase fathers' intention of taking leave. Together with the Social Security Institute of Uruguay (BPS), we designed and implemented an information intervention delivered via email and text messages (SMS) targeting workers contributing to BPS who were recent parents and/or of reproductive age.<sup>3</sup> Two parallel experiments were implemented, building on insights from behavioral science regarding drivers of behavior and intention formation (Ajzen 1991, Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006, Michie et al. 2011). The first one focused on female and male workers and tested the effect of an information message (treatment) against no messages, i.e. regular access to existing publicly available information to date (control). The second experiment focused on recent parents. Here we tested the differential effects of three messages: (i) information about the parental leave program (same as in experiment one), and two “information plus” messages, (ii) a message emphasizing the benefits of men's involvement in childcare through the testimony of a father, and (iii) a message emphasizing the importance of planning and sharing childcare between parents.

> 2 For example, according to the OECD Family Database (https://www.oecd.org/els/family/database.htm) in 2021 across OECD countries fewer than 50 men for every 100 live births used parental leave benefits. 3 We consider individuals between 18 and 42 years of age.

2
The intervention was successful in increasing awareness of the parental leave program, both among men and women across all groups. Notably, men became aware that they were potential beneficiaries. These effects are more significant for beneficiaries who were not yet parents. Messages about father’s involvement and couple planning helped reduce traditional gender norm views among women. Nevertheless, we find an unintended effect of the intervention among fathers, who indicate a preference for the mother to be the main beneficiary of parental leave, possibly due to the strong association of the time when leave can be used (between 3-6 months of age of the child) and breastfeeding.

In line with other studies (Cosso et al., 2022; Richardson et al., 2021; Head et al., 2013) that have looked at the effectiveness of SMS-based interventions, our results show that a low-cost and low-intensity intervention can have substantial effects on program knowledge among potential future beneficiaries. Furthermore, an intervention that promotes reflection regarding gender roles (see for example Legros and Cislaghi, 2020) can also help reduce gender stereotypes and change gendered attitudes toward parental leaves among women.

This paper contributes to the growing literature on the use of behavioral science informed interventions to support government delivery and uptake of social programs (see for example DellaVigna and Linos, 2022; Banerjee et al., 2021; Dahl et al. 2014). A non-exhaustive list of examples of the effective use of behaviorally informed text messages and emails includes increasing tax compliance (Ortega and Scartascini, 2015; Antinyan and Asatryan, 2019), encouraging savings (Karlan et al., 2016), improving school attendance and grades (Berlisnki et al., 2016; Castleman and Page, 2015), and increasing vaccination rates (Milkman et al., 2022).

When it comes to parenting and care behaviors, similar interventions have proven successful in increasing preschool attendance by motivating parents (Mateo Diaz et al., 2020), informing parents about early childhood development (Barrera et al., 2020), and parenting behaviors (Ajzenman and Lopez Boo, 2019; Bloomfield et al., 2022). However, fewer applications have been documented for active care sharing.

The literature on intrahousehold task distribution and care sharing responsibilities suggests that the factors that influence the distribution of childcare by fathers and mothers are varied. On the one hand, parents often make implicit decisions about the care of their children (Hacohen et al., 2018; Andringa et al., 2015), which promote the maintenance of the status quo in the traditional gender roles assignment, placing women as the main responsible caregiver. On the other hand, there are economic factors, such as gender differences in wages (Batthyány et al., 2018; Plantenga et al. 2010), and the presence (or not) of workplace arrangements that support childcare (Goldin, 2014). Similarly, when it 3
comes to parental leave, and particularly fathers’ use of leave, the focus has been on program design - the duration, labor market impacts and payment amounts (Ziegler and Bamieh 2023; Patnaik 2019). Although there is ample literature on factors that influence intrahousehold roles allocation for care, few studies have attempted to address them via similar interventions (Aloud et al., 2020; Hacohen et al., 2018; Mayer et al., 2015). This study contributes to the limited evidence on the application of low-cost information interventions to improve the take-up of a program, as well as to change intrahousehold care allocations by motivating questioning of prescribed gender norms, and implicit decisions behind the intentions and behaviors related to the use of parental leave in Uruguay.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides the context and background information on the Parental Leave program. Section 3 presents a description of the study, including the experiments, samples, balance test, dataset, and empirical strategies. Section 4 discusses the main results and presents the heterogeneity analyses. Finally, Section 5 discusses the policy implications of the results.

# **2. Parental Leave Program in Uruguay**

Uruguay has a persisting gender gap in care activities and labor force participation. Bucheli et al. (2019) find that the gender gap in hours per week dedicated to home production emerges when the couple moves into cohabitation (from 6 to 16) and this gap widens with the arrival of children (from 16 to 29), even when both men and women perform care tasks. Moreover, Querejeta and Bucheli (2021) provide evidence of important motherhood penalties in Uruguay: ten years after childbirth women’s formal employment is 44% below its level just before childbirth.

In this context, regulation has been introduced to increase men's involvement in childcare. In November 2013, Uruguay approved Law 19,161, which creates a parental leave program providing a subsidy to new parents so they can halve their daily working schedule to devote time to the care of the newborn. The program complements the existing paternal and maternal leave schemes, and the BPS fully assumes the costs by transferring the wage compensation to the beneficiaries. The subsidy covers from the end of maternity leave until the newborn turns six months of age. Among the objectives of this leave program, the following stand out<sup>4</sup> : i) to increase the father's involvement in the upbringing of children and ii) to close gender gaps in employment trajectories.

> 4 Explanatory Memorandum of the Law 19,161 _(https://parlamento.gub.uy/documentosyleyes/fichaasunto/118979/ficha_completa_ ).

4
The leave program allows fathers and mothers to alternate the use of the benefit. However, figures by Batthyány et al. (2018) show that the enrollment in the program among men is considerably lower than among women. In 2018, 69.6% of potential female beneficiaries used the subsidy, while only 4.5% of males did. International evidence shows that financial reasons, career penalties (Twamley and Schober, 2019, Ziegler and Bamieh, 2023), and concerns about fathers' identity and reputation (Weisshaar, 2018; Dahl et al., 2014) are significant barriers to fathers' leave take-up.

Low take-up by Uruguayan fathers can be attributed to three main factors (Batthyány et al., 2018): i) lack of information, as 16.7% of men are unaware of the existence of the benefit, 61.8% are unaware of the duration, and 41.7% do not know that both parents can use it, while these proportions for women are 4.9%, 27.5%, and 22.3%; ii) perception of incurring additional monetary costs when taking-up, with 57.6% of men surveyed believing so; and iii) gender norms, with 33.3% of men stating that it is the mother's responsibility to take care of the baby during the first year of life. A higher program take-up from fathers can have consequences on the labor integration of women, the stability of the couple (Petts et al., 2019, Schober, 2014; Eggebeen and Knoester, 2001), parenting behaviors, and ultimately, on children's cognitive and social development (Amato and Rivera, 1999; Craig et al., 2018).

# **3. Research Design**

# _3.1. Intervention and experiment design_

We designed a communication intervention using insights from behavioral sciences to tackle the lack of awareness and misperceptions of program features and to motivate further the enrollment intention and sharing of the subsidy among potential beneficiaries. The study aims to improve the awareness and knowledge about the existence, duration, and portability of the subsidy, reduce the perceived costs of participating, and change the belief of who should take the subsidy and the intention to take it.

We categorize possible barriers to the use of parental leave following the capabilities, opportunities, and motivation framework (COM-B) (Michie et al., 2011). This framework assumes that behaviors can be changed and are affected by three types of factors: Barriers related to the perceived ability a person has to do the behavior -in this case, to use the parental leave and perform care duties (capability); the perceived external factors preventing the behavior from taking place (opportunity); and motivating factors to consider and/or actively engage in the behavior. Following an analysis of existing studies on barriers to paternity leave 5
take-up,<sup>5</sup> we conducted preparatory fieldwork (i.e., telephonic semi-structured interviews with former parental leave beneficiaries) to validate and identify barriers to the use of the program. Results confirmed existing data regarding lack of awareness of the program's features, perceived negative impacts on men’s work, and prevailing gender norms around care as main barriers to take-up. The interviews also revealed that several respondents considered men to be unfit for care-related tasks of young infants and expected logistical challenges and a negative impact on breastfeeding if the father was to use the leave.

The intervention, informed by these findings, was designed to increase information about the program and promote use intention (Ajzen 1991). It consisted of a message, to be sent by email, SMS, or both to potential beneficiaries of the program, i.e., female and male workers of reproductive age (18 to 42 years of age) enrolled with the BPS. We targeted two population groups and designed two separate experiments according to the beneficiary's proximity to parenthood and, thus, the likelihood of considering using parental leave. First, potential beneficiaries that were neither current beneficiaries nor applicants of any parental leave scheme (maternal, paternal, or parental leaves). Second, recent parents, defined as current applicants or beneficiaries of maternal or parental leave over the five months prior to the intervention rollout.

# _Experiment 1_

This experiment sought to test the impact of a message with basic information about the program features on the awareness, knowledge, beliefs, and intentions regarding the take-up of the subsidy for the general target population. The intervention was aimed at the total population of men and women of reproductive age contributing to the BPS who comply with the following conditions: (a) being employed in May 2021, (b) not being beneficiary of any maternity, paternity, or parental leave program, (c) meeting the working requirements for eligibility to the subsidy program.<sup>6</sup> Participants were randomly assigned to a treatment group that received the information message or a control group that did not receive a message.

# _Experiment 2_

This second experiment focused on understanding if three specific message frames, in addition to information about the program feature, targeting preidentified barriers were conducive to changes in the awareness, knowledge, beliefs, and intentions of the population more prone to request the subsidy. This intervention targeted men and women of reproductive age that were current users or had applied for

> 5 See for example, Bartel et al. (2018)   Hacohen et al. (2018); Andringa et al. (2015), Batthyány et al. (2018); Plantenga et al. (2010).

> 6 Besides contributing to BPS, applicants should be dependent workers in the private sector, non-dependent workers and collaborating spouses of companies with up to one employee, single taxpayers, directors of companies with remuneration, or cooperative partners. Other types of work are not included in this program.

6
maternity or paternity leave programs in the five months before the intervention rollout. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups for each of the message framings described below. This experiment did not include a pure control.

# _3.2. Messages_

The messages sought to tackle three specific barriers identified in the literature review and qualitative work: lack of information on the enrollment and operation of the subsidy (related to opportunity factors), lack of evidence of experiences by other men (peer effects) who had used parental leave, and implicit decisionmaking based on gendered beliefs about differential childcare abilities of parents. Message 1 was delivered to groups from both experiments, while messages 2 and 3 were only part of experiment 2. All messages were delivered via email and SMS and included a link to an informative brochure that simply and attractively presented information about the subsidy and how to apply for it (see Appendix A for more detail).

## _Message 1: Information_

This message provided simple information about the subsidy program and its main features, emphasizing that the program allowed for alternated use between father and mother, and that financial coverage was such that the beneficiary's salary would not be affected.<sup>7</sup>

## _Message 2: Testimony_

Additional to the information in message 1, this message incorporated the testimony of a father who benefited from the subsidy. This framing aimed to channel peer effects and leverage the narration of someone’s experience with the benefit to challenge beliefs related to traditional gender norms deeming men as unfit caregivers, remove the fear of stigma in men’s social or work environment if choosing to use the subsidy, and leverage positive experiences of leave take-up by fathers.<sup>8</sup>

## _Message 3: Planning_

Additional to the information in message 1, this message stressed the importance of planning the use of the subsidy. The message included three topics to discuss with the partner parent: how to distribute childcare tasks, how the father could also be in charge of the child's feeding during the breastfeeding period, and how to distribute the leave days. It was designed to debunk gendered beliefs about the exclusive role of the

> 7 See Appendix A.1 for the full text of the message.

> 8 See Appendix A.2 for the full text of the message.

7
|Feb-May 2021<br>|Ago. 2021<br>a|1stSep. 2021|19th Jan - 3rd March<br>2022|
|---|---|---|---|
|Qualitativeworkto|Pilot|Intervention|Post-treatment survey|
|identify barriers||Messages sentto|Phonesurvey|
|Messages design||participants of both<br>|conducted to a sample<br>|
|||experiments|ofparticipants|
The administrative records of the BPS included two databases, which were collected to identify the target groups from each experiment:

- _Contributors' Administrative Records, from the Tax and Collection Advisory:_ This database included possible

- future subsidy beneficiaries who made up the sample for experiment 1. Separate strata of men and women were randomly assigned to receive the information message (T1) or none (C).

- _Records of Beneficiaries of leave programs:_ From this registry, we identified participants for experiment 2 as BPS contributors who had requested or were benefiting from maternity or paternity leave five months before messages were sent. A sample of men and women using or with an approved request for paternity or maternity leave was taken. Men and women strata were randomly assigned to receive one of the three messages: information (T1), testimony (T2), or planning (T3).

Finally, we rely on additional administrative records to analyze the medium-term effects of the intervention on effective use of the parental leave. For all surveyed individuals, we obtained subsidy applications and access for the period up to nine months after the intervention from the BPS databases.<sup>10</sup>

# _3.4. Randomization checks_

The estimation sample consists of 2,463 individuals, 858 men, and 1,605 women. 1,221 correspond to Experiment 1, from the sample of formal employees of reproductive age. The remaining 1,242 corresponds to Experiment 2, from the sample of recent parents benefiting from maternal or paternal leave. Table B.1 in the Appendix details the sample size for each experiment and treatment arm by sex.

We use individuals' characteristics to check the sample balance across treatment arms. Tables B.2 to B.4 in the Appendix show the balance test results for each sample. For Experiment 1, we found no statistically significant differences in covariates by treatment arm. For Experiment 2, we tested 15 mean differences (5 variables between 3 treatment groups). We found a lack of balance for men and women in one variable (tertiary education), within the tolerance level of 10%. All variables are included in the regression as controls to account for potential imbalances.

# _3.5. Descriptive statistics_

This section presents descriptive statistics from the impact variables collected in the post-intervention survey. Figure 2 shows responses on recalling receiving the message by experiment. On average, 38.5% of

> 10 We consider individuals who applied for the benefit between September 1, 2021, and June 6, 2022.

9
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<!-- Start of picture text --> 100 95.1 94.7<br>89.4 91.2<br>86.4 80.9<br>= 80<br>oo<br>F<br>60 55.7<br>Fa647.3647.347.3<br>5 40 43.5<br>2oo31.6 31.6<br>a2oo31.6<br>20<br>ie}<br>Men Women<br>HE Both parents [EM Father involvement EME During breastfeeding<br>M8 First months NN, «Who earn less<br><!-- End of picture text --> <!-- Start of picture text --> 100 95.7 945<br>90.0 88.7 90.8<br>84.3<br>= 80<br>o<br>F 58.8<br>5 60<br>6 47.0<br>Fa55 40 36.8<br>2<br>a2<br>21.1<br>20<br>0<br>Men Women<br>HM Both parents [EE Father involvement [MEM During breastfeeding<br>M8 First months [NN Who earn less<br><!-- End of picture text --> <!-- Start of picture text --> 100 95.1 94.7 100 95.7 945<br>89.4 91.2 90.0 88.7 90.8<br>86.4 80.9 84.3<br>= 80 = 80<br>==<br>oo<br>oF F 58.8<br>2oo60 55.7 5 60<br>Fa647.3647.347.3 6 47.0<br>5 40 43.5 Fa55 40 36.8<br>a2oo31.6 a2<br>21.1<br>20 20<br>ie} 0<br>Men Women Men Women<br>HE Both parents [EM Father involvement EME During breastfeeding HM Both parents [EE Father involvement [MEM During breastfeeding<br>M8 First months NN, «Who earn less M8 First months [NN Who earn less<br>100 100<br>2xxg80 2gg 80<br>22oo>oO oO><br>Bcc260 B 60<br>o a o2 a<br>33<br>33<br>84040 8 40<br>2<<2<br>@OO o @OO o<br>aa<br>20 20<br>0 0<br>Men Women Men Women<br>HE Onlyme = Onlymypartner = Both HE Onlyme =.sOOnly my partner.sOOnly my partner my partner partner<br>M85 Neither Not yet decided ME Both M8 Neither<br><!-- End of picture text --> <!-- Start of picture text --> 100<br>g8080<br>>oOoO<br>26060<br>o a<br>33<br>84040<br>@OO o<br>aa<br>20<br>0<br>Men Women<br>HE Onlyme = Onlymypartner = Both<br>M85 Neither Not yet decided<br><!-- End of picture text --> <!-- Start of picture text --> 100<br>2gg 80<br>>oO><br>B 60<br>2o2 a<br>3<br>8 40<br>2<br>@OO o<br>a<br>20<br>0<br>Men Women<br>HE Onlyme =.sOOnly my partner.sOOnly my partner my partner partner<br>ME Both M8 Neither<br><!-- End of picture text -->
Finally, Table 2 shows individuals' effective use of parental leave up to nine months after the intervention. Parental leave take-up is higher among women for all treatment arms compared to men. There are strong differences by experiment, and the percentage of both men and women that made use of the parental leave program is much higher in Experiment 2. That can be explained by the fact that this sub-sample is composed of individuals that are already parents. Moreover, the demand for parental leave is slightly higher in the treated group in Experiment 1 for both men and women, and in Experiment 2 among men.

Table 2. Medium-term effective use of parental leave by treatment arm and sex

|**Experiment**|**Intervention**||**Men**|**Wo**|**men**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|1|Control|0|0,0%|4|1%|
||Information|1|0,4%|8|2,4%|
||Information|1|1,1%|177|57,1%|
|2|Testimony|3|2,8%|186|58,9%|
||Planning|7|6,7%|175|56,1%|

Notes: The table shows individuals' effective use of parental leave between 1st September 2021 and 7th June 2022 for each treatment arm and sex. The estimation sample consists of 1,221 individuals in experiment 1 (554 men and 667 women), and 1,242 in experiment 2 (304 men and 938 women). Data includes all surveyed individuals. Source: Postintervention survey.

# _3.6. Empirical strategy_

To investigate the effects of providing information through a text message campaign, we estimate the following equation separately for men and women: where yig is the outcome of interest for individual _i_ of gender _g_ . Tig is a set of treatment dummies that varies among experiments. For experiment 1 (formal workers of reproductive age), βt when _t=1_ identifies the effects of receiving the message with information on the parental leave program. The omitted group is in this case the control group. For Experiment 2 (recent parents), we have no pure control and will have three relevant coefficients βt for _t_ =1, 2, 3, identifying the effects of (1) having received the role model text message compared to the information one, (2) the planning message compared to the information one, (3) and the role model message compared to the planning one. Xig is a vector of individual control variables, including age, nationality, geographic region, cohabiting status, maximum educational level, previous childbirths, and pregnancy status (these two last variables only for experiment 1’s sample). ∂s are sample g strata fixed effects and ε robust standard errors. i 13
# **4. Results**

This section presents the main results by sex of participants. We start by showing the effects of the intervention on the knowledge of the program, agreement with gender norms, and parental take-up rate in Experiment 1 and then in Experiment 2. Finally, we analyze the sensitivity of the main results to different specifications as robustness checks.

# _4.1. Effects on formal employees of reproductive age_

## _Knowledge of the program_

Table 3 reports the estimates for parental leave knowledge separately by sex and for each experiment subsample. Coefficients are the result of regressing each characteristic of the parental leave program on a series of dummy variables indicating the treatment arm depending on the experiment's type, and individual control variables as detailed in the previous section.

Results show that having received the message with information about the parental leave program has a positive and statistically significant effect on the program's knowledge, both among men and women. The effect is more widespread among women, for whom we report positive effects on overall knowledge, start date of parental leave, duration, that both mother and father can use the benefit, and that they can use it alternately. The only dimension for which we fail to find a significant effect is knowing about the 100% wage replacement rate. For men we only find significant and positive effect on knowing that both mother and father can use the benefit. So, having received the message increases men's knowledge that they are potential beneficiaries of the parental leave by 8.3 percentage points (pp). The magnitude is quite important considering that the control mean is 26.2%. Despite finding effects in only one dimension for men, we stress that this is a key finding because nowadays fathers represent only 2% of total beneficiaries. Moreover, these effects are found in the sample of formal employees of reproductive age, who are likely to become parents in the near future.

Table 3. Effects on knowledge, experiment 1

||||**Pane**<br>|**l A: Men**<br>|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Overall|Wages|Start date|Duration|Beneficiary|Sharing|
|Information (M1)|0.064|0.048|-0.043|-0.038|0.083**|0.027|
||(0.040)|(0.037)|(0.027)|(0.029)|(0.038)|(0.032)|
|Observations|554|554|554|554|554|554|
|R-squared|0.114|0.047|0.055|0.101|0.090|0.056|
|Control mean|0.411|0.229|0.138|0.160|0.262|0.160|

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||||**Panel**<br>|**B: Women**|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Overall|Wages|Start date|Duration|Beneficiary|Sharing|
|Information (M1)|0.187***|0.056|0.115***|0.074**|0.136***|0.088***|
||(0.036)|(0.037)|(0.036)|(0.034)|(0.036)|(0.028)|
|Observations|666|666|666|666|666|666|
|R-squared|0.083|0.061|0.079|0.091|0.106|0.072|
|Control mean|0.536|0.345|0.301|0.253|0.304|0.110|

Notes: The table shows the results of regressing the variables regarding knowledge of the parental leave program on individual control variables (age, nationality, geographic region, cohabiting status, maximum educational level), and sample strata fixed effects. Robust standard errors reported in parenthesis. ***significant at the 1% level, **5% level, *10% level. The estimation sample consists of 1,221 individuals in experiment 1 (554 men and 667 women). Source: Post-intervention survey.

# _Gender norms_

15
Table 4 **Error! Reference source not found.** shows the effects of the intervention on gender norm attitudes. The outcome variables are a series of dummies indicating that the individual mostly agrees with the stated gender norm. It is important to recall that there is a high level of agreement with the more progressive perceptions regarding childcare among both men and women, and for both experiments (as shown in Figure 4). Therefore, there is a small room for the intervention to generate an effect on these dimensions.

For women in experiment 1 we find that having received the message with information reduces the level of agreement with the statement `Women should take care of their baby during the first months'. No effects were found for men.

# _Parental leave usage_

Finally, we report the effects of the intervention on the intention to use parental leave and effective use by sex. Table 5 shows the results on the outcome variables indicating whether the couple talked or is going to talk about how to use the parental leave (Planning), decided or will decide to use it both by the mother and father (Use both), use it only by him(her)self (Use only me), or only his(her) partner (Use only partner), as well as a variable indicating whether the person effectively applied and became beneficiary of the parental leave after the intervention (Effective use). We find no effect of the intervention on planning, intention of parental leave usage, and effective use among both women and men in either experiment.

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Table 4. Effects on gender norms attitudes, experiment 1

||||**Panel A: Men**<br>|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Both<br>parents|Father<br>involvement|During<br>breastfeeding|First<br>months|Who earn<br>less|
|Information (M1)|-0.018|-0.003|-0.021|-0.014|-0.000|
||(0.026)|(0.018)|(0.029)|(0.041)|(0.042)|
|Observations|549|550|551|546|513|
|R-squared|0.030|0.017|0.056|0.105|0.090|
|Control mean|0.904|0.952|0.875|0.563|0.434|
|||**P**<br>|**anel B: Women**<br>|||
||Both<br>parents|Father<br>involvement|During<br>breastfeeding|First<br>months|Who earn<br>less|
|Information (M1)|0.031|0.012|0.006|-0.083**|-0.005|
||(0.022)|(0.017)|(0.031)|(0.037)|(0.036)|
|Observations|660|660|655|654|623|
|R-squared|0.030|0.041|0.043|0.129|0.083|
|Control mean|0.898|0.943|0.807|0.512|0.317|

Notes: The table shows the results of regressing the variables regarding agreement with gender norm attitudes on individual control variables (age, nationality, geographic region, cohabiting status, maximum educational level), and sample strata fixed effects. Robust standard errors reported in parenthesis. ***significant at the 1% level, **5% level, *10% level. The estimation sample consists of 1,221 individuals in experiment 1 (554 men and 667 women). Source: Post-intervention survey.

Table 5. Effects on intention to use parental leave and effective use, experiment 1

||||**Panel A:**<br>|**Men**<br>||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Planning|Use both|Use onlyme|Use only partner|Effective use|
|Information|0.002|-0.008|0.007|0.011|0.003|
|(M1)|(0.028)|(0.038)|(0.010)|(0.037)|(0.003)|
|Observations|537|528|528|528|554|
|R-squared|0.095|0.047|0.065|0.045|0.039|
|Control mean|0.873|0.742|0.0115|0.223|0|
||||**Panel B: W**<br>|**omen**<br>||
||Planning|Use both|Use onlyme|Use only partner|Effective use|
|Information|0.013|0.014|-0.018|0.006|0.011|
|(M1)|(0.030)|(0.036)|(0.036)|(0.006)|(0.011)|
|Observations|654|649|649|649|666|
|R-squared|0.069|0.065|0.064|0.018|0.037|
|Control mean|0.811|0.683|0.311|0.00305|0.012|

Notes: The table shows the results of regressing the variables regarding intention to use parental leave on individual control variables (age, nationality, geographic region, cohabiting status, maximum educational level), and sample strata fixed effects. Robust standard errors reported in parenthesis. ***significant at the 1% level, **5% level, *10% level. The estimation sample consists of 1,221 individuals in experiment 1 (554 men and 667 women). Source: Postintervention survey.

# _4.2. Effects on recent parents_

In this subsection we report the results of the intervention for individuals in experiment 2, that is, formal workers who recently were parents and are benefiting from maternal and paternal leave. Recall that for this sample of participants there is no pure control group (i.e., individuals who did not receive a message). Thus, 17
is not possible to evaluate the effect of having received the message. Alternatively, for this group of individuals, it is possible to compare the differential effects between the three messages.

# _Knowledge of the program_

Table 6 shows more modest results on parental leave knowledge compared to experiment 1. This can be partly explained because knowledge of the program in this sub-sample is much higher than in Experiment 1, and also because all individuals in this experiment received a message with basic information about the program. We only find a significant and negative effect on knowing about the 100% wage replacement rate for men.

Table 6. Effects on knowledge, experiment 2

||||**Pane**<br>|**l A: Men**<br>|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Overall|Wages|Start date|Duration|Beneficiary|Sharing|
|Role model (M2)|0.020|-0.105|-0.056|-0.105|0.010|0.016|
||(0.059)|(0.075)|(0.065)|(0.070)|(0.071)|(0.068)|
|Planning (M3)|-0.026|-0.141**|-0.001|-0.034|-0.037|-0.014|
||(0.066)|(0.072)|(0.067)|(0.072)|(0.077)|(0.069)|
|Observations|304|304|304|304|304|304|
|R-squared|0.235|0.231|0.217|0.225|0.233|0.195|
|Control mean|0.723|0.479|0.287|0.394|0.564|0.266|
|Diff M2-M3|0.0459|0.0362|-0.0545|-0.0713|0.0466|0.0304|
|p-val|0.432|0.608|0.407|0.301|0.513|0.645|
||||**Panel**<br>|**B: Women**<br>|||
||Overall|Wages|Start date|Duration|Beneficiary|Sharing|
|Role model (M2)|-0.000|-0.010|0.012|-0.004|-0.006|-0.027|
||(0.021)|(0.038)|(0.033)|(0.032)|(0.035)|(0.040)|
|Planning (M3)|-0.013|-0.020|0.026|-0.036|-0.049|0.014|
||(0.022)|(0.038)|(0.032)|(0.033)|(0.036)|(0.039)|
|Observations|936|936|936|936|936|936|
|R-squared|0.097|0.095|0.135|0.094|0.097|0.068|
|Control mean|0.926|0.661|0.774|0.797|0.748|0.387|
|Diff M2-M3|0.0133|0.0107|-0.0141|0.0325|0.0429|-0.0410|
|p-val|0.542|0.782|0.665|0.328|0.231|0.294|

Notes: The table shows the results of regressing the variables regarding knowledge of the parental leave program on individual control variables (age, nationality, geographic region, cohabiting status, maximum educational level), and sample strata fixed effects. Robust standard errors reported in parenthesis. ***significant at the 1% level, **5% level, *10% level. The estimation sample consists of 1,242 individuals in experiment 2 (304 men and 938 women). Source: Post-intervention survey.

# _Gender norms_

Table 7 shows the effects of the intervention on gender norm attitudes for individuals in experiment 2. Among fathers, the message about couple planning (M3) helped reduce traditional gender norms compared to the information and role model messages. It increased the level of agreement with the statement `It is 18
important for the baby that both parents use the parental leave'. However, we also find unintended effects by increasing the level of agreement with the statement `Women should take care of their baby during breastfeeding'. Mentioning breastfeeding in the planning message seems to backfire. The hypothesis is that this message produced a strong association between parental leave and breastfeeding; thus, mothers are identified as the main caregivers during this period.

Table 7. Effects on gender norms attitudes, experiment 2

||||**Panel A: Men**<br>|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Both<br>parents|Father<br>involvement|During<br>breastfeeding|First<br>months|Who earn<br>less|
|Role model (M2)|-0.001|-0.002|0.031|0.014|-0.034|
||(0.049)|(0.030)|(0.052)|(0.075)|(0.070)|
|Planning (M3)|0.081**|0.016|0.133***|-0.081|0.000|
||(0.041)|(0.030)|(0.046)|(0.077)|(0.075)|
|Observations|300|303|302|301|291|
|R-squared|0.155|0.264|0.153|0.172|0.229|
|Control mean|0.883|0.936|0.830|0.596|0.402|
|Diff M2-M3|-0.0822|-0.0181|-0.102|0.0953|-0.0341|
|p-val|0.0327|0.542|0.0257|0.188|0.621|
|||**P**|**anel B: Women**|||
||Both<br>parents|Father<br>involvement|During<br>breastfeeding|First<br>months|Who earn<br>less|
|Role model (M2)|-0.023|0.002|-0.047|-0.018|-0.022|
||(0.024)|(0.019)|(0.030)|(0.040)|(0.034)|
|Planning (M3)|0.013|-0.003|-0.038|-0.065|-0.034|
||(0.023)|(0.019)|(0.029)|(0.040)|(0.033)|
|Observations|925|935|929|924|890|
|R-squared|0.057|0.024|0.041|0.104|0.116|
|Control mean|0.913|0.945|0.869|0.481|0.229|
|Diff M2-M3|-0.0360|0.00430|-0.00944|0.0472|0.0122|
|p-val|0.138|0.816|0.765|0.241|0.709|

Notes: The table shows the results of regressing the variables regarding agreement with gender norm attitudes on individual control variables (age, nationality, geographic region, cohabiting status, maximum educational level), and sample strata fixed effects. Robust standard errors reported in parenthesis. ***significant at the 1% level, **5% level, *10% level. The estimation sample consists of 1,242 individuals in experiment 2 (304 men and 938 women). Source: Post-intervention survey.

# _Parental leave usage_

Finally, we report the effects of the intervention on parental leave usage by sex in experiment 2. Table 8 shows the results on the outcome variables indicating whether the couple talked or is going to talk about how to use the parental leave (Planning), decided or will decide to use it both mother and father (Use both), use it only him(her)self (Use only me), or only his(her) partner (Use only partner), as well as a variable indicating whether the person effectively applied and became beneficiary of the parental leave after the intervention (Effective use).

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The intervention was successful in altering the intention of parental leave usage among fathers. However, we find no effect of the intervention on planning nor effective use among both women and men.<sup>15</sup> There is evidence of a significant increase in the probability of using it only himself for fathers in experiment 2 who received the role model message compared to the planning message.<sup>16</sup> The emphasis on the father's role as caregiver appears to have had a positive effect on the intention to use the parental leave by men.

Table 8. Effects on intention to use parental leave, experiment 2

||||**Panel A**<br>|**: Men**<br>||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Planning|Use both|Use onlyme|Use only partner|Effective use|
|Role model (M2)|0.046|0.007|0.045|-0.046|0,003|
||(0.078)|(0.072)|(0.045)|(0.077)|0,016|
|Planning (M3)|-0.041|0.071|-0.039|-0.022|0,014|
||(0.081)|(0.077)|(0.039)|(0.080)|1,017|
|Observations|302|294|294|294|304|
|R-squared|0.105|0.192|0.136|0.149|0,544|
|Control mean|0.511|0.407|0.0659|0.440|0,011|
|Diff M2-M3|0.0872|-0.0641|0.0832**|-0.0239|-0,011|
|p-val|0.253|0.385|0.0387|0.753|0,642|
|||**Pa**<br>|**nel B: Women**<br>|||
||Planning|Use both|Use onlyme|Use only partner|Effective use|
|Role model (M2)|-0.002|-0.029|-0.006|0.017|0,010|
||(0.041)|(0.037)|(0.039)|(0.011)|0,039|
|Planning (M3)|0.009|-0.048|0.041|0.004|-0,003|
||(0.042)|(0.036)|(0.038)|(0.010)|0,039|
|Observations|922|928|928|928|936|
|R-squared|0.056|0.092|0.097|0.147|0,115|
|<br>Control mean|0.502|0.304|0.647|0.0162|0,571|
|Diff M2-M3|-0.0110|0.0190|-0.0464|0.0127|0,012|
|p-val|0.789|0.598|0.228|0.307|0,754|

Notes: The table shows the results of regressing the variables regarding intention to use parental leave on individual control variables (age, nationality, geographic region, cohabiting status, maximum educational level), and sample strata fixed effects. Robust standard errors reported in parenthesis. ***significant at the 1% level, **5% level, *10% level. The estimation sample consists of 1,242 individuals in experiment 2 (304 men and 938 women). Source: Postintervention survey.

# _4.3. Robustness checks_

Finally, we estimate some alternative model specifications in order to provide robustness to the main results.

We first re-estimate the main specification excluding the set of control variables. Then we estimate the same

> 15 As shown in

> Table B. 8, the specification with standard errors clustered at strata level shows that the message about couple planning (M3) helped increase the effective use of parental leave among fathers compared to the information message. The magnitude of this effect (0.057) is quite important given the low take-up among fathers in the control group (0.011).

> 16 This effect holds when estimating the results using a multinomial logit for a 4-category variable instead of separate binary outcomes. Results available upon request.

20
model specification with clustered standard error at the strata level instead of robust standard errors. We also show the results of estimating a Probit model instead of a standard OLS. Finally, we correct for multiple hypothesis testing using the Romano and Wolf stepdown adjusted p-values. Estimations are reported in Table B. to 21
Table B. 10 in the Appendix. Overall, results provide evidence on the robustness of the main results.

For the experiment 1 (formal workers of reproductive age), all reported effects are robust to the alternative specifications. For men in the experiment 2 (formal workers recent parents), the positive effect reported on knowing about the 100% wage replacement rate, and in the level of agreement with the statement `It is important for the baby that both parents use the parental leave', turn non-significant in the specification without controls. The positive effect in the probability of using the parental leave only by fathers turns nonsignificant in the specification using clustered errors.

When introducing a multiple hypothesis testing correction, in experiment 1 all reported positive effects on knowledge for women remain significant. The positive effect on knowledge among men and the positive effect regarding gender norms among women present p-values not far from the 10% significance level (0.129 and 0.139 respectively). For experiment 2, the negative effect on gender norms regarding breastfeeding for fathers remains significant. We find no other outcome effects.

# **5. Conclusion**

Parental leave has been increasingly used as a family policy to facilitate childcare and promote a more equal distribution of household and care tasks. However, across the world, fathers' leave take-up, even when available to them, remains low (Karu and Tremblay, 2018). Advanced economies have had some success providing incentives to fathers to take more parental leave through monetary bonuses or directly by assigned reserved number of days specifically for each parent (Kolowski et al., 2021, Ziegler and Bamieh 2023). In this paper, we study the effects of an information intervention that used email and text-messaging to increase awareness of and intent to use parental leave by men and women in Uruguay. The intervention targeted formal workers of reproductive age who were contributing to the Social Security Institute (BPS). Two experiments were implemented, one with workers who had recently become parents, and another with those in the reproductive age group. The latter were randomly allocated to receive a message with information about the parental leave program. New parents were randomly assigned to receive one of three possible messages: the same information message as the general population group, or one of two versions of an enhanced message that in addition to information about the program either highlighted the benefits of fathers’ involvement in childcare or a message that highlighted the importance of planning for and sharing childcare among parents.

We document that the intervention was successful in addressing some pre-identified barriers to program enrollment: lack of knowledge and misperceptions of the program features, beliefs about who should take the subsidy, and intention to use the subsidy or its effective use.

22
For female and male formal workers of reproductive age, the informational message increased awareness of the parental leave program. The effect is stronger among women, while among men the intervention increased their knowledge that both mother and father can use the benefit. Regarding gender norms, having received the message reduced women’s level of agreement with the statement `Women should take care of their baby during the first months'. No effects were found for men. Furthermore, we find no effect of the intervention on planning, intention of parental leave usage, and effective use among either women or men.

For recent parents, we find more modest effects on knowledge of parental leave compared to Experiment 1. This can be due to a much higher knowledge of the program in this subsample than among the general population (as it is more salient for their immediate decision-making and planning). In addition, as all participants in this experiment received basic information about the program, we cannot compare it with a condition where no information was sent. Regarding gender norms, the message about planning for care distribution helped reduce traditional gender norms views among fathers. It increased agreement with the statement `It is important for the baby that both parents use the parental leave', compared to those who received the other two messages. However, mentioning breastfeeding in this message (see appendix for full message) seems to invoke a strong association of parental leave and breastfeeding, acting as a cue to the mothers’ feeding role and the strongly promoted message of the importance of breastfeeding. Finally, we find no effect of the intervention on the likelihood that the couple reported talking or planning to talk about how to use the parental leave among both women and men, but the intervention was successful in altering the intention of parental leave usage for men. Among fathers, the emphasis on the father's role as caregiver appears to have a positive effect on the intention to use parental leave by men.

Taken together, our results contribute to the literature and policy discussion showing that low-cost and lowintensity interventions such as SMS and emails can be powerful instruments to improve awareness and intention to use benefits such as parental leave. Moreover, to the extent that the intervention successfully made men more aware of the leave benefit they are entitled to, and increased take-up of the parental leave program among fathers, it also helped to change or question traditional gender roles division about care and changed gendered attitudes toward parental leaves among women. Our results provide encouraging evidence that similar interventions have the potential to shift default gendered behaviors and norms and to promote gender equality.

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