Heterogeneous workplace peer effects in fathers’ parental leave uptake in Finland

Family policies increasingly encourage fathers to take parental leave to boost maternal employment and paternal childcare involvement. Yet many fathers use less than their entitlement. Limited studies suggest workplace peers may encourage fathers to take more leave, but evidence is mixed, leaving uncertainty about who is influenced and when.This study explores educational heterogeneity in direct workplace peer effects on fathers’ parental leave usage, aiming to understand which fathers in which contexts are influenced by peers. We utilise Finnish full-population administrative registers and linked employer-employee data on fathers’ leave uptake in 2009–2019, covering 117,837 births. Structural causal models and Bayesian multilevel logistic regression are used to examine how preceding fathers’ leave influences new fathers.Findings show that peers’ leave usage positively influences new fathers, with low-educated fathers more affected than highly educated ones. Peer effects were strongest in workplaces with no prior leave uptake and declined as more fathers began taking leave, especially among skilled men.Workplace peer effects are a key mechanism behind rising leave uptake between policy reforms. In contexts with limited information on leave consequences, peers serve as important sources of learning—particularly for low-educated men—but the informational value declines as uptake becomes more common.