On August 22, 2025 CHESS doctoral student Amy Heshmati successfully defended her doctoral thesis, Designed for Equity? Studies on Parental Leave and the Mental Health of Parents.
Becoming a parent is life changing. It is an exciting time, but it can also feel overwhelming and stressful. Many new parents face mental health challenges during this period, with around 17% of mothers and 9% of fathers experiencing depression after the birth of a child.
Parental leave is a family policy that can help ease the transition to parenthood by granting new parents paid time off work to care for their child, which can help reduce financial stress and support mental well-being. However, not all parents have equal access to generous remuneration. In many schemes, including Sweden’s, more highly compensated benefits are only available to parents who have been in steady employment.
Amy’s thesis examines the extent to which the generosity of parental leave schemes influences postpartum mental health in mothers and fathers. The thesis is comprised of a systematic review of peer-reviewed international literature as well as three empirical studies based on Swedish population registers. The findings show that although generous parental leave can promote postpartum mental health, strict work requirements for higher level benefits may reinforce structural inequalities and contribute to widening health inequalities.
Amy’s thesis can be downloaded at: KI Open Archive
Q: What is your academic background, and what lead you to pursue a PhD at CHESS?
I originally trained as a pharmacist, gaining my Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. I completed my pre-registration year at Middlemore Hospital, a tertiary hospital in South Auckland that serves a large proportion of individuals from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, where health inequalities are readily apparent. I continued working at Middlemore Hospital for several years, albeit with a period in between where I worked as a clinical pharmacist in the United Kingdom.
During my time at Middlemore Hospital, a few of my colleagues were studying for Master’s degrees in population health, which really sparked my interest in public health and the social determinants that shape people’s health. When my husband and I relocated to Stockholm, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to pursue a Master’s in Public Health at the Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS). After completing my degree, I worked as a research assistant with Professor Ilona Grünberger at CHESS, focusing on life course epidemiology and in particular, how early life characteristics influence cardiovascular disease in later life.
While on parental leave, the PhD position within the project, Unintended health consequences of Sweden’s parental leave policy: a health equity perspective, was advertised. The topic immediately resonated with me not only because of my professional interests, but also because of what I was seeing and hearing while administrating the 2019 Sweden Baby Group Facebook page. On this platform, many mothers discussed challenges related to parental leave, employment, and mental health, which made me eager to explore these issues more deeply through research. I saw this position as an excellent opportunity to gain experience in public policy and health, and to explore how public policies can affect people’s health.
Q: Your PhD work was supported by CHESS, and as such entailed a collaboration between Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet. How did this collaboration influence your PhD training?
Being part of both Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet was a real privilege. I was involved in two research groups — the ParLeHealth team at the Department of Public Health Sciences at Stockholm University and the Equity and Health Policy Research Group at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet. This collaboration gave me access to two vibrant research communities and the opportunity to learn from a wide range of researchers with different perspectives and expertise. Having two academic “homes” enriched my PhD experience by broadening my network, exposing me to diverse approaches to public health research, and fostered an environment of openness and collaboration.
Q: From a health equity perspective, what are the most important findings of your thesis?
The findings from my thesis suggest that generous parental leave can help prevent or alleviate poor mental health in the postpartum period, even after accounting for key factors that influence eligibility for generous parental leave: mental health conditions before parenthood, employment and income. However, the findings also show that mothers with poor health before pregnancy, particularly those with mental disorders or chronic health conditions, are less likely to qualify for generous, higher-level benefits. This suggests that there are structural inequalities in eligibility for generous parental leave benefits, which may unintentionally exclude those parents most in need of support during the transition to parenthood. As eligibility for generous parental leave benefits is tied to labour market attachment, policies that promote stable employment and relax strict work requirements could help improve parents’ mental health in the postpartum period.
Q: What health inequality research would you like to pursue in the future?
Going forward, I would like to continue studying health inequalities related to the transition to parenthood. I’m particularly interested in examining long-term mental health outcomes for parents, and how generous parental leave policies influence these outcomes.