The Temporary Leave Dilemma -

Lone mothers have to take care of a sick child with little or no help from the
child’s other parent and have to carry all costs connected to leave-taking. This
paper empirically tests whether lone mothers take more temporary parental
leave to care for sick children than partnered mothers and whether parental
leave is associated with a signaling cost. The results from this study of Swedish
mothers show that lone mothers use more temporary parental leave than
partnered mothers. Further, within the group of lone mothers, those with
higher socioeconomic status take less temporary parental leave than those with
lower socioeconomic status, whereas no such differences are found within the
group of partnered mothers. One possible interpretation is that signaling costs
negatively influence the utilization of temporary parental leave for lone
mothers.