In 2023 the Australian Government reformed the Paid Parental Leave (PPL) scheme to make it more flexible and gender neutral. A key objective of the reforms was to encourage both parents to share caring arrangements. In this project, we explored how forms and websites support parents’ intentions to share their parental leave entitlements.
BETA’s interviews with new and soon-to-be parents found that decision-making on PPL was influenced by the enduring norm that mothers are the ‘primary carers’. Most parents indicated the mother would take most of the leave entitlement. We also found that employers are a trusted source of guidance about parental leave, but that misconceptions exist about the difference between employer-funded and government-funded PPL.
Separately, in a survey experiment we found that – compared with the current form – making the option to share days more salient and mentioning the purpose of the PPL scheme encourages fathers to claim more days. We did not find any influence on mothers’ claims.
Overall, our research suggests that government policies, and the ways these are communicated and implemented, can both reflect and influence broader social norms – with both then informing individuals’ choices. As such, seemingly minor changes to the wording and structure of government websites and forms can reduce confusion and broaden care options for parents.
Trial start and end dates: 19 February to 4 March 2024
Ethics approval: Australian National University Human Research Ethics Committee (Protocol 2021/430)
Research participants: 1,523
Design: Three-arm randomised controlled trial embedded in an online survey. The trial involved a hypothetical scenario in which participants were asked to imagine that they were part of a couple who were expecting a child together. Participants were asked to imagine they were in the mother’s or father’s role (depending on the participant’s gender) and completing the Parental Leave Pay (PLP) claim form.
Interventions:
Trial arm 1: Business as usual. Participants saw information about PLP and claim questions as they are currently presented in the claim form (shortened slightly).
Trial arm 2: Treatment 1. Participants saw a revised version of the information and the question. The revised version used an ‘active sharing’ format that asked the participants to indicate how they would like to share the leave in their family (rather than asking only how many days they would individually like to claim).
Trial arm 3: Treatment 2. Participants saw the same revised information and question as Treatment 1, with additional text summarising the purpose of the PPL scheme.
Outcome measures: The number of PLP days allocated to the father in the scenario.
AEA pre-registration: https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/13157