The European Parenting Leave Policies (EPLP) Dataset: Leave Duration Entitlements for 21 Countries From 1970 to 2024

Abstract

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 long-term 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.

Objective

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.

Full text (demographic-research.org )

Authors

Sonja Spitzer, Adèle Lemoine, Zhanxiong Song, Claudia Reiter, Angela Greulich, Agneta Herlitz, Alžběta Bártová, Elisa Brini, Zuzana Dančíková, Dovilė Galdauskaitė, Libertad González, Evi Hatzivarnava-Kazassi, Helena Honkaniemi, Sol Pía Juárez, Rannveig Kaldager Hart, Ida Lykke Kristiansen, Anna Kurowska, Katre Pall, Barbara Pertold-Gebicka, Tatjana Rakar, Tapio Räsänen, Konstantina Rentzou, Pedro Romero Balsas, Eva-Maria Schmidt, Laurène Thil, Dora Tuda, Lili Vargha, Daniele Vignoli, Sander Wagner, Katharina Wrohlich

Additional Information

• Peer-Reviewed: yes.
• Open Access: yes.
• Cite as: Spitzer, S., Lemoine, A., Song, Z., Reiter, C., Greulich, A., Herlitz, A., Bártová, A., Brini, E., Dančíková, Z., Galdauskaitė, D., González, L., Hatzivarnava-Kazassi, E., Honkaniemi, H., Juárez, S. P., Hart, R. K., Kristiansen, I. L., Kurowska, A., Pall, K., Pertold-Gebicka, B., … Wrohlich, K. (2026). The European Parenting Leave Policies (EPLP) dataset: Leave duration entitlements for 21 countries from 1970 to 2024. Demographic Research, 54, 987–1008. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2026.54.31