The European parenting leave policies (EPLP) dataset : leave duration entitlements for 21 countries from 1970 to 2024

Spitzer, Sonja (author), Rakar, Tatjana (author)

Background: Parenting leave policies shape how caregiving and paid work can be reconciled around the time of childbirth. They have important implications for fertility, employment, and gender equality. Still, there are limited quantitative cross-country data capturing longterm policy changes that impact how long parents can temporarily be away from work to care for their children, and how leave can be shared between them. Objecitve: The European Parenting Leave Policies (EPLP) Dataset provides harmonised regulations on maternity, co-parent, paid parental, and job-protected leave across 21 European countries from 1970 to 2024. It focuses on policies that shape how long birth mothers and their co-parents can take leave. Methods: Statutory leave entitlements were compiled from national legal sources, official government publications, and secondary literature. We followed a consistent set of data collection rules to enable comparison across countries and over time. Because the dataset focuses on time away from the job, it considers only rights for employed parents. It includes 33 variables and also documents country-specific reform timelines. Contribution: The EPLP Dataset fills a gap in existing data sources by providing quantitative data across 55 years on policies that shape how long parents stay at home around birth and how leave is shared between them. In addition to leave duration and benefits, it covers recent policy instruments such as incentives for parents to share leave, and timing and flexibility of leave use. The dataset enables cross-national comparisons and the analysis of changes over time, and can be used to study the effects of policy reforms.

• Language: English
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 987–1008
• Numbering: Vol. 54, art. 31
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-182958
• UDC: 314
• ISSN on article: 2363-7064
• DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2026.54.31
• COBISS.SI-ID: 279817219
• Publication date in RUL: 29.05.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Demographic research
• Publisher: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
• ISSN: 2363-7064
• COBISS.SI-ID: 525168153

Licences

• License: CC BY 3.0, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
• Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
• Description: You are free to reproduce and redistribute the material in any medium or format. You are free to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: politika starševskega dopusta, materinski dopust, porodniški dopust, javne politike