Beyond Policy: How Workplace Support, Gender Norms, and Hierarchy Shape Parental Leave Decisions

• In Event: 20814 - Workplace Support, Gender Norms, and Work-Family Balance in Policy and Practice

Abstract

In the evolving landscape of contemporary workplaces, family leave policies have become a focal point, responding to shifting societal expectations and the dynamic nature of work. Existing research highlights the importance of social support in shaping employees’ decisions to use work-family policies, with supervisors and colleagues often playing a key protective role (Blair-Loy & Wharton, 2002; Thébaud & Pedulla, 2022). At the same time, high-profile figures in the corporate world continue to draw public attention, sometimes praised, sometimes criticized, for their parental leave choices. Acknowledging the potential influence from a diverse peer spectrum, this study explores how social support within organizations—particularly the gender and hierarchical status of leave-taking peers—influences family leave decisions (Daigle, 2019).
Employing an online vignette experiment, preliminary findings suggest that individuals’ perceptions of their own leave decisions are shaped by the gender, hierarchical status, and leave behaviors of workplace peers. Male and higher-status peers tend to elicit more favorable workplace evaluations and perceptions of organizational support. However, when high-status men model extended leave, their actions may be interpreted less as signs of cultural change and more as individualized exceptions. These patterns suggest that peer behavior functions as a social signal—filtered through gendered and hierarchical expectations—and illustrate the complexity of how caregiving norms are interpreted within organizational contexts.

Author

• So Yun Park, University of Wisconsin-Madison