Parental leave can improve parents’ mental health by promoting gender-equitable work-life balance, yet evidence is lacking on the longevity of these outcomes and their extension to children. A unique opportunity to investigate these developments is the introduction and expansion of the Swedish parental leave system in the 1970s. By evaluating these reforms, this project will aim to disentangle the effects of gender-neutral paid parental leave for mental health throughout the life course and across the linked lives of parents and children.
The project will use total population register data on births, family ties, social factors and mental health outcomes. Families will be distinguished by policy exposure (children’s birth before or after the 1974 introduction and 1975 and 1978 expansions of parental leave benefits) and parental leave eligibility (maternal employment). Quasi-experimental methods will be applied to compare risks of psychiatric outcomes (psychotropic prescriptions, psychiatric outpatient and inpatient care, suicide) for individuals by policy exposure, eligibility and uptake, with follow-up from the child’s 18th birthday until 2025.
The project represents a rare effort to investigate the long-term health consequences of welfare reforms over decades, and will thus help to promote relevant research in the overall field of welfare policy and health. Its comprehensive approach to examining the wellbeing of the entire family unit also supersedes previous initiatives to analyze effects on individual policy users (e.g., the parents using leave). Following the 50th anniversary of the Swedish parental leave system, the studies proposed within this project can shed light on the sustainability of welfare policies and their unintended health consequences within families and across generations, identifying further opportunities for research on the long-term health effects of social policies.
Project information
Project members
- Helena Honkaniemi-Hoppe, Principal Investigator
- Sol P Juárez
Project period
2026 – 2028
Project funder
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond