Competing powers: An examination of the role of intra- and extra-household factors on fathers' leave take-up

This article examines how intra-household resources and extra-household organisational contexts jointly shape fathers' parental leave trajectories under a gender-neutral individual entitlement. Using administrative social security register data (IGSS) from Luxembourg, we analyse first-time, parental leave-eligible heterosexual couples with one child born between 2009 and 2012, conceptualising parental leave as a two-stage process: (1) fathers' initiation (timing) and (2) couples' joint allocation of leave duration. We estimate Kaplan-Meier curves and parametric survival models for initiation and multinomial logistic regressions for joint leave-taking strategies. We find that fathers generally take parental leave relatively late, with the first months after childbirth remaining predominantly a maternal territory. Descriptive results show that fathers in couples with greater economic resources tend to start leave later, with initiation timing strongly patterned by workplace context, including workforce composition in both fathers' and mothers' workplaces. Fathers' earnings play a stronger role in determining how leave is allocated between parents, suggesting that the financial costs of leave matter more for leave duration. At the same time, workplace conditions, particularly whether fathers work in female-dominated workplaces, remain important for both when fathers take leave and how much they take it. Overall, the findings show that having a legal right to parental leave does not automatically lead to equal use of that leave. Fathers' leave-taking is shaped by both workplace norms and the practical constraints couples face when making decisions together. Policies that aim to increase more symmetrical allocation of leave among parents should therefore focus not only on leave entitlements and payment levels but also on creating workplace environments that support and normalise taking leave.