We use a difference-in-differences model with individual fixed effects to evaluate a 1999 Spanish law granting employment protection to workers with children younger than 6 who had asked for a shorter workweek due to family responsibilities. Our analysis shows that well-intended policies can potentially backfire and aggravate labor market inequalities between men and women, since there is a very gendered take-up, with only women typically requesting part-time work. After the law was enacted, employers were 49% less likely to hire women of childbearing age, 40% more likely to separate from them, and 37% less likely to promote them to permanent contracts, increasing female non-employment by 4% to 8% relative to men of similar age. The results are similar using older women unaffected by the law as a comparison group. Moreover, the law penalized all women of childbearing age, even those who did not have children. These effects were largest in low-skill jobs, at firms with less than 10 employees, and in industries with few part-time workers. These findings are robust to several sensitivity analyses and placebo tests.

我们使用具有个体固定影响的差异模型来评估1999年的西班牙法律，该法律授予6岁以下儿童的工人由于家庭责任而要求缩短工作周的工人的就业保护。我们的分析表明，良好的政策可能会适得其反，并加剧男女之间的劳动力市场不平等，因为这是一种性别歧视，只有女性通常要求兼职。颁布法律后，雇主雇用育龄妇女的可能性降低了49％，与她们分离的可能性提高了40％，将她们晋升为永久合同的可能性降低了37％，使女性失业率上升了4％，达到8 ％相对于类似年龄的男性。使用不受法律影响的老年妇女作为比较组，结果相似。而且，该法律对所有育龄妇女，包括那些没有孩子的妇女，进行了处罚。这些影响在低技能工作，雇员少于10人的公司以及兼职人员很少的行业中最大。这些发现对于几种敏感性分析和安慰剂测试是可靠的。