Longer paternity leave is linked to reduced maternal gateclosing

New research published in Sex Roles finds that when new fathers take longer paternity leave, mothers tend to show fewer gateclosing behaviors and hold more flexible attitudes about parental roles.

Becoming a parent brings major changes, especially for dual-earner couples who have to balance the demands of infant care with work responsibilities. Even though fathers in the United States have become increasingly involved in childcare over the past several decades, mothers still take on the greater share during infancy, in part due to longstanding norms and constraints around parental roles.

Expanding parental leave, especially leave available to fathers, has been considered one way to support more equal caregiving. Research has shown that when fathers take leave, they become more engaged in childcare and may even carry those habits forward for years after their child is born. Reed Donithen and colleagues were interested in whether this increased involvement might also change how mothers encourage or restrict fathers’ participation in caregiving.

One important family dynamic in this context is maternal gatekeeping, which includes behaviors and attitudes that either facilitate (“gateopening”) or restrict (“gateclosing”) fathers’ engagement in parenting. Past work has linked higher maternal gateclosing to less father involvement, lower-quality father-child relationships, and greater strain in the romantic relationship.

Despite increasing interest in paternal leave, no prior studies have examined whether new fathers’ leave length might shift maternal gatekeeping. Because parental identities are developing in the early postpartum period, the authors proposed that fathers’ longer leave could lead both parents to adopt more egalitarian views of childcare, reducing mothers’ gateclosing tendencies.

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The study drew on data from a longitudinal project that followed 182 dual-earner, different-sex couples in the Midwestern United States through their transition to parenthood. Couples were originally recruited during the pregnant mother’s third trimester through childbirth classes, advertisements, flyers, and referrals.

After applying eligibility criteria, which required that both parents worked before and after birth, provided leave-length information, and excluding one extreme outlier, the final sample included 130 couples. Participants completed surveys during pregnancy and again at 3, 6, and 9 months postpartum.

Mothers’ and fathers’ leave lengths were measured in days across the postpartum follow-ups, distinguishing paid from unpaid leave. Maternal gatekeeping was assessed at nine months postpartum. Both mothers and fathers completed the Parental Regulation Inventory, which captures gateopening (e.g., asking for the father’s input) and gateclosing (e.g., criticizing or redoing fathers’ childcare efforts). Mothers also completed attitude subscales from the Allen & Hawkins (1999) measure, capturing standards/responsibilities and maternal role confirmation.

Multiple psychological and demographic factors measured during pregnancy, including parental self-efficacy, maternal psychological distress, maternal parenting perfectionism, maternal essentialism, fathers’ essentialism, relationship confidence, and socioeconomic status, were included as controls. Path analyses were then used to test whether fathers’ leave length predicted maternal gatekeeping behaviors and attitudes at nine months postpartum.

On average, mothers took about 67 days of leave, while fathers took about 14. Across analyses, longer paternity leave predicted significantly lower maternal gateclosing behaviors, according to both mothers’ and fathers’ reports. Fathers’ longer leave was also linked to more flexible maternal attitudes, including less stringent standards/responsibilities and weaker maternal role confirmation.

These associations remained significant even after adjusting for mothers’ leave time and the wide range of psychological and demographic covariates. In contrast, fathers’ leave length was not associated with maternal gateopening behaviors, meaning that mothers did not necessarily increase their active encouragement of father involvement despite becoming less restrictive.

Maternal leave length, by comparison, did not predict any form of maternal gatekeeping. Several covariates also showed meaningful associations. For example, maternal parenting perfectionism predicted stronger gateclosing and stricter household standards, and maternal confidence in the couple’s future predicted greater gateopening.

However, these factors did not alter the central finding, that paternity leave length uniquely and consistently predicted reductions in maternal gateclosing. Exploratory analyses examining whether the effects of paternity leave depended on maternity leave length found no significant interactions.

The authors note that the study relied on a U.S. sample of largely White, highly educated, dual-earner couples from one geographic region, which may limit generalizability to more diverse families or contexts with different parental leave policies.

These findings highlight that when fathers take longer leave after the birth of a child, mothers appear less likely to restrict fathers’ involvement and hold more flexible views of parental roles, offering insight into how paternity leave may support more egalitarian coparenting.

The study, “When New Fathers Take More Leave, Does Maternal Gatekeeping Decline?” was authored by Reed Donithen, Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, Miranda Berrigan, and Claire Kamp Dush.