If leave entitlements foster continuous female participation in the labour market, there will be growing acceptance from families and employers and greater career rewards for women. Social interaction may then produce a knock-on effect as more women feel they can enter the labour market, invest in a career before having children, time childbirth, take maternity leave, and return to work afterwards (Bernhardt, 1993, Gustafsson and Kenjoh, 2007). In this context, women w'ho are not yet in a position to claim paid parental leave would also benefit from its provision. They are also likely to benefit even further over time, as there is evidence that whole generations of women have been influenced by the shift in women’s identity from a family-centred world to a more career-oriented one (Goldin and Katz, 2002, Goldin, 2006).