The effect on women’s health of extending parental leave: a quasi-experimental registry-based cohort study

Courtin, Emilie, Rieckmann, Andreas, Bengtsson, Jessica, Nafilyan, Vahe, Melchior, Maria, Berkman, Lisa and Hulvej Rod, Naja (2023) The effect on women’s health of extending parental leave: a quasi-experimental registry-based cohort study. International Journal of Epidemiology, 52 (4). 993 - 1002. ISSN 0300-5771

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Abstract

Background: Parental leave policies have been hypothesized to benefit mothers’ mental health. We assessed the impact of a 6-week extension of parental leave in Denmark on maternal mental health. Methods: We linked individual-level data from Danish national registries on maternal sociodemographic characteristics and psychiatric diagnoses. A regression discontinuity design was applied to study the increase in parental leave duration after 26 March 1984. We included women who had given birth between 1 January 1981 and 31 December 1987. Our outcome was a first psychiatric diagnosis following the child’s birth, ascertained as the first day of inpatient hospital admission for any psychiatric disorder. We presented cumulative incidences for the 30-year follow-up period and reported absolute risk differences between women eligible for the reform vs not, in 5-year intervals. Results: In all, 291 152 women were followed up until 2017, death, emigration or date of first psychiatric diagnosis. The median follow-up time was 29.99 years, corresponding to 10 277 547 person-years at risk. The cumulative incidence of psychiatric diagnoses at 30 years of follow-up was 59.5 (95% CI: 57.4 to 61.6) per 1000 women in the ineligible group and 57.5 (95% CI: 55.6 to 59.4) in the eligible group. Eligible women took on average 32.85 additional days of parental leave (95% CI: 29.20 to 36.49) and had a lower probability of having a psychiatric diagnosis within 5 years [risk difference (RD): 2.4 fewer diagnoses per 1000 women, 95% CI: 1.5 to 3.2] and up to 20 years after the birth (RD: 2.3, 95% CI: 0.4 to 4.2). In subgroup analyses, the risk reduction was concentrated among low-educated, low-income and single women. Conclusions: Longer parental leave may confer mental health benefits to women, in particular to those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://academic.oup.com/ije
Additional Information:	© 2022 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Health Policy
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine R Medicine > RC Internal medicine H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Date Deposited:	23 Apr 2024 15:24
Last Modified:	23 Apr 2024 18:06
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/122771

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