The increasing generosity of parental leave policies in recent decades has been an immense achievement for social welfare systems worldwide. However, large inequalities in parental leave use persist, including by parents’ socioeconomic standing, their knowledge of the parental leave system and pervasive gender norms.
In fact, evidence suggests that migrants, and migrant fathers in particular, continue to use less parental leave than other parents. This is especially concerning given that parental leave is not only beneficial for the mother and child but also has broad implications for fathers’ wellbeing through, for example, greater participation in childcare and decreased engagement in risky health behaviours. Although previous studies have examined efforts to promote fathers’ parental leave in general, little has been done to examine minority groups, such as migrants, nor their health-specific outcomes.
To fill in this gap, we worked with Mikael Rostila (Stockholm University) and Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi (University of Glasgow) to investigate the mental health consequences of a Swedish fathers’ leave reform, the 1995 Father’s quota. The study is now published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
Before the reform, parents could freely decide how to share their parental leave days, yet most days were claimed by mothers. The reform aimed to incentivise fathers’ leave use by reserving 30 parental leave days specifically to fathers. By comparing fathers’ health outcomes before and after the implementation of this reform, we evaluated the effects of the policy per se, as well as the effects of increased parental leave uptake on fathers’ health in general.
According to our results, both native and migrant fathers increased their parental leave uptake following the 1995 Father’s quota. More interestingly, the study reveals that while native fathers showed no changes in hospitalizations, migrant fathers experienced significant decreases in psychiatric hospitalisations alongside their changes in parental leave use.
These results suggest that policies designed to incentivise parental leave use may be especially crucial for parents with otherwise low levels of uptake, including migrants. By introducing a potential penalty for unused parental leave days (i.e., fewer parental leave days in total), fathers may be more inclined to stay at home than with a fully flexible system. In fact, the finding that migrant – but not native fathers – experienced mental health improvements following the reform suggests that the need for fathers’ leave use was previously unmet among migrant fathers.
We provide empirical support for the use of welfare policies to promote a more gender-equitable society. The results also serve as an invitation for policymakers to consider parental leave policies through a ‘Health in All Policies’ lens, that is, as an opportunity to bridge social and health inequalities within the population. In other words, the Father’s quota should be viewed as an achievement from a health equity perspective and should encourage greater consideration of unintended health consequences in the design of future parental leave reforms.