Parental leave good protection against mental illness

Parental leave is a good protection against deteriorating mental health. The positive effects in mothers can also remain later in life.

This is claimed by three researchers who have compiled 45 international studies on the subject, reports forskning.se.

– The beneficial effects are associated with more generous systems for parental leave, for example with longer leave, says Amy Heshmati, PhD student and first author of the study, to the research site.

Heshmati and her two research colleagues from Stockholm University (SU) and Karolinska Institutet (KI), have investigated the connection between parental leave and mental health in parents.

The conclusion is: Parental leave provides protection against mental illness. Both when it comes to depression, general mental illness, mental anxiety, burnout and the need for mental health care.

According to Sol P Juárez, one of the co-authors of the study, psychological problems after childbirth are relatively common: ten to twenty percent of mothers and up to ten percent of fathers are affected.

Now the researchers can see that the positive effects of parental leave remain even later in life – for mothers. For fathers, however, the positive effect is more short-lived.

The researchers came up with their result, which has been published in the journal The Lancet, by looking at 45 different studies on the subject that have been carried out in 14 high-income countries (including Sweden) that offer some form of guaranteed parental leave.

– Although we found evidence of protective effects that last several years after childbirth and later in life, more research is needed to substantiate this, says Amy Heshmati, to forskning.se.

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