The Temporary Leave Dilemma: Lone and Partnered Mothers in Sweden
研究瑞典单身母亲与有伴侣母亲在照顾生病孩子时使用临时育儿假的差异，发现单身母亲请假更多，且高社会经济地位的单身母亲请假更少，暗示信号成本的影响。
Abstract 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.