Abstract: This paper exploits the introduction of a Swedish “daddy-month” reform in a
difference-in-discontinuities design to study how fathers’ parental leave affects children’s
human capital. Results show that the reform improved average compulsory
school-leaving GPAs of sons of college educated fathers by 0.06 standard deviations,
while GPAs of sons of non-college educated fathers declined by 0.05 standard
deviations. We estimate that the reform increased intergenerational persistence of
human capital by ten percent for boys with no corresponding effects for girls. We
provide suggestive evidence that these results are linked to asymmetric impacts on
family stability and role model effects.