Generous parental leave provides protection from mental illness

researchers from Department of Global Public Health At Karolinska Institutet and the Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University have jointly investigated the relationship between parental leave and parents’ mental health from an international perspective.

In order to get a comprehensive picture of the impact of parental leave, they aggregated research results published across five different online databases. The summary shows that parental leave provides protection for mothers from mental illness, both after childbirth and later in life, especially when the leave is paid for at least two or three months.

– Through the review, we can conclude that parental leave provides protection against mental illnesses, including depression, general mental illness, psychological anxiety, fatigue, and the need for mental health care. This is particularly true for mothers, and the beneficial effects are associated with more generous parental leave plans, for example with longer leave, he says. Amy HashmatiPhD student and senior author of the study.

All studies were conducted in high-income countries, which offer some form of guaranteed parental leave.

overview

This is the most comprehensive systematic review on this topic to date. We looked for associations between different aspects of parental leave, such as length of leave and whether the leave was paid or unpaid, and their association with the mental health of both parents. We even investigated the indirect effect on a partner’s mental health as a result of a parent taking parental leave, says Amy Heshmati.

In the long run, the well-being of the entire family is affected by the length of parental leave.

Although we found evidence of protective effects lasting several years after birth and later in life, more research is needed to confirm this. That said, we can say that current research strongly shows that generous parental leave helps mitigate or prevent mental ill health, especially for mothers, which is very important from a policy perspective, says Amy.

There were a total of 45 studies as the basis for the pooled results.

The research was funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Publishing

The effect of parental leave on parents’ mental health: a systematic review.
Heshmati A, Honkaniemi H, Juárez SP
The Lancet Public Health Jan 2023; 8 (1): e57-e75