Estonian benefit reform linked to more second and third children

The findings came from Sanan Abdullayev’s doctoral thesis in governance, law and society at Tallinn University, which examined Estonia’s permanent population of childbearing age. The study also showed that a father’s receipt of shared parental benefits could not be treated as evidence that he had assumed primary responsibility for childcare: around 70% of fathers receiving the benefit worked at least part-time while on leave. Before the reform, a child’s carer could take a long period of parental leave, but childcare allowances were paid at the same low rates to everyone.

The 2004 reform shortened the payment period while linking parental benefits to the recipient’s previous income. In general, this meant that the benefit was intended to compensate for the earnings of the parent staying home with a child. Parents who had their next child within 30 months of the previous child’s birth could retain the benefit rate they had received before that earlier birth.

Parents who had previously been unemployed began receiving benefits close to the minimum wage, providing some households with additional income. Abdullayev used Estonian national registers and composite statistical models to assess two outcomes: whether a family had a subsequent child and the time between births. According to the thesis, it was the first study to use composite models to distinguish those outcomes when analyzing the effects of family-policy measures.

The work was observational rather than experimental, so its results identify associations between the reform and changes in fertility behavior rather than establishing causation through random assignment. This distinction was important when interpreting the use of shared parental leave. Income was the strongest factor predicting which parent applied for shared parental benefits.

The more a father earned relative to the child’s mother, the more likely he was to claim the benefit. However, benefit receipt did not necessarily mean that the father stopped working or became the primary caregiver. Estonian family policy allowed parents to continue working while receiving parental benefits, and approximately 70% of fathers who received the benefit worked at least part-time during their leave to increase their household’s total income.

In this context, the father’s application for benefits was primarily associated with a financial decision rather than a demonstrable transfer of primary childcare responsibility. The father’s use of paternity leave was associated with a higher probability of having a third child and with a shorter interval before that birth. The association was particularly clear in families where the mother returned to paid employment while the father received paternity benefits.

The thesis concluded that a generous, income-related allowance paid over a sufficiently long period may increase the likelihood of another child, indicating that Estonia’s reform met one of its main fertility-policy objectives. At the same time, the study showed that assessing family policy requires more than identifying which parent receives support: evaluations must distinguish benefit receipt from work patterns and examine how childcare is actually shared between parents. The research therefore linked the reform to higher subsequent-birth probabilities and shorter birth intervals while showing that fathers’ use of the benefit did not, by itself, establish that they were providing most day-to-day childcare.

Subject of Research: Effects of Estonia’s 2004 parental benefit reform on subsequent births and shared parental leave

Article Title: Parental benefit encouraged people to have children in Estonia, but fathers mainly applied for financial reasons

Article References: Parental benefit encouraged people to have children in Estonia, but fathers mainly applied for financial reasons. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

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DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Estonia, parental benefits, parental leave, fertility behavior, family policy, birth intervals, national registers, observational study, gendered caregiving, Parental, benefit, encouraged