Abstract
Recent evidence, including this study, suggests that family-friendly practices, such as parental leave and flexible work schedules, enable more women to stay in the workplace after childbirth. This study investigates whether adopting parental leave induces firms to recruit more or fewer women. The effects of parental leave on recruitment behavior depend on whether firms have promoted women to management or not. The results suggest that firms with female managers recruit more women, but firms with male managers only recruit less women. According to the human capital theory, firms that fully invest in human capital for women gain a higher return from women's longer tenure with parental leave, and, thus, recruit more women. Moreover, regardless of gender, employees' feelings of attachment to their firms is increased not only by satisfaction with work worth doing, but also by satisfaction with balancing work and family. Finally, it is found that women and men are both eager to leave the workplace where women have often suffered from sexual harassment. Adopting family friendly practices and preventing sexual harassment are important policies for improving women's economic status. Those policies improve men's well-being in the workplace as well.
