Recent Publications
Below are selected publications from the past few years. For a full list, please see my CV.
Marinova, Dani M. & de Carvalho, Gabriela. 2026. “De-penalizing motherhood? Paternity leave and the redistribution of workplace bias.” Social Politics. DOI. Pre-print.
Abstract
Paternity leave policies aim to increase men's caregiving and reduce employer biases against women. Yet fathers' greater visibility as caregivers may itself generate new workplace bias. We examine how Spain's reform — which equalized paternity with maternity leave — reshaped the gender gap in reported workplace discrimination. Drawing on survey data from 3,950 parents and exploiting variation in leave entitlement across birth cohorts, we find the reform did not narrow the gender gap as intended. Mothers report stable and high discrimination across all cohorts — roughly twice fathers' rate — with no post-reform improvement. Fathers, by contrast, report rising discrimination with longer entitlements, from 9.8% to 17.1% across cohort groups. The gender gap narrows not through mothers' gains but through fathers' losses. The monotonic gradient, flat maternal reports, and permutation-based inference all point to the reform as the driver. Non-transferable paternity leave appears to redistribute rather than eliminate workplace bias.Marinova, Dani & Hellwig, Tim 2026. “Welfare by Design: Public Response to the Distribution of Old Age Pensions.” European Journal of Political Research. Open access. Replication materials.
Abstract
A basic premise of research on welfare state spending is that electoral incentives matter, with voters backing programme expansion and opposing retrenchment. However, the evidence supporting this premise is mixed. Departing from previous studies, we argue that these apparent null effects arise from an emphasis on the generosity of social benefits rather than their distribution. Shifting attention to the latter, we argue that individual preferences over the allocation of welfare spending depend on their relationship to economic vulnerability. Individuals in secure economic situations support schemes with benefits proportional to contributions, while those in more vulnerable positions favour systems based on recipient need. These heterogeneous preferences translate into public evaluations of policymaker performance, providing a pathway for the electoral connection. We test this argument in two stages. First, we use data from the European Social Survey to examine how individual precarity shapes preferences for needs-based versus contributory pensions. Second, we use the Executive Approval Database to assess how the composition of pension expenditures and perceptions of debt affect government support across eleven European welfare states from 1986 to 2019. Study findings provide evidence consistent with our theoretical expectations. Results highlight the micro-level foundations of policymakers’ electoral incentives and provide a path forward for specifying connections between the allocation of social policy spending and mass politics.Marinova, Dani. & Bellón Jiménez, Pedro Manuel. 2025. “Paternity Leave and the Motherhood Penalty: How Within-Couple Inequality Conditions Policy Impact.” Social Policy & Administration. DOI. Pre-print.
Abstract
Motherhood-related labour market penalties remain a major driver of the gender employment gap. Father-specific paternity leave is often promoted as a policy tool to support maternal employment, yet evidence of its effectiveness is mixed. This article examines whether—and under what conditions—paternity leave reduces key dimensions of the motherhood penalty, including the timing of return to work, the terms of labour market re-entry, and perceived professional sacrifice. We use original survey data from 1800 mothers whose children were born before and after Spain's 2021 paternity leave reform, which granted fathers 16 weeks of non-transferable leave, the same duration as maternity leave. Regression models show that equal, non-transferable paternity leave does not significantly shorten employment interruptions. The main exception is mothers earning roughly the same as their partners: they are significantly more likely to return earlier to full-time work after the reform and to report fathers' involvement as a facilitator, attesting to the moderating role of intra-household equality on policy effects. However, mothers' perceptions of professional sacrifice remain largely unchanged after the reform. At least in the short term, father-specific entitlements alone appear insufficient to reduce the motherhood penalty, as its impact is constrained by pre-existing gender inequalities.Marinova, Dani & León, Margarita. 2025. “Paternity leave take-up in a segmented labor market: A cautionary tale of rapid policy expansion in Spain.” European Journal of Social Policy, 35(4). DOI. Pre-print.
Abstract
To evaluate the success of paternity leave as a progressive, equal-access policy instrument, it is essential to assess it against the backdrop of preexisting labor market inequalities that condition its use. We investigate the recent and rapid expansion of paternity leave entitlements in Spain where leave was extended from four to 16 weeks over the course of just three years. Analyses of an original survey administered to cohorts of fathers with leave entitlements of varying lengths show that average take-up surges but does so unevenly. As uptake rates soar among fathers in stable employment, fathers in temporary jobs, the self-employed, and those at the bottom and top of the income distribution maintain lower levels of usage. These results align with the ‘Matthew Effect' of social policy, whereby reforms disproportionately benefit well-positioned socioeconomic groups, and imply bleak prospects for the reform’s capacity to generate social change across social strata. The results thus tell a cautionary tale of the rapid expansion of paternity leave in a segmented labor market where work culture and gender norms are slower to adjust. With the enforcement of the 2019 EU Work-Life Balance Directive, other European Member States are looking to extend paternity leave swiftly, thus increasing the relevance of these results for policy considerations.Cañero Ruiz, Julia & Marinova, Danislava. 2025. “Equal and Non‑transferable Entitlement? Preferences Regarding the Parental Leave System in Spain”. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 190, 61–84. Open access.
Abstract
Given the lack of research on preferences regarding the parental leave system in Spain, this study uses data from an original survey of 3100 new mothers and fathers to show that acceptance levels of the current equal, non-transferable parental leave system are very low (10.4 %), and that there is a considerable gender gap in preferences on the distribution of parental leave. In contrast, broad acceptance rates of the creation of new pre- and post-partum leave to protect the mother’s health were found (97 %), even among those who prefer equal duration of parental leave for both parents. Systematic inconsistencies in preferences were also identified, which lead to the conclusion that these preferences are not yet crystallised probably due to the absence of political and social debate on the characteristics and implications of the new parental leave system.Fraile, Marta & Marinova, Dani. 2024. “Closing the Gender Gap in Internal Political Efficacy? Gender Roles and the Masculine Ethos of Politics in Spain.” Political Behavior, 46(4), 2287–2311. Open access. Replication materials..