Fathers who take several months of parental leave have a lower risk of developing depressive symptoms during the early years of their child’s life than fathers who take only a short period of leave.
This is shown by a Swedish study, “Beyond the 90 Reserved Days for Each Parent: Associations Between Fathers’ Parental Leave Duration and Depression Symptoms in a Swedish National Cohort Study” by Jingyi Wang & Michael B. Wells, that was published in the American Journal of Public Health.
Research on parental leave has traditionally focused on mothers’ health, while less attention has been paid to fathers’ mental health. In this study, researchers followed 746 Swedish fathers over 18 months, starting when their babies were around 9 months old. Fathers answered questions about depressive symptoms at the start of the study and again at the follow-up, when their children were about 27 months old. Information about fathers’ parental leave was collected at the later follow‑up.
Because fathers’ mental health might influence how much leave they take, the researchers accounted for fathers’ depressive symptoms measured at the start of the study. They also adjusted for factors such as family and socio-economic circumstances, and the amount of parental leave taken by the mother.
Better mental health
The results show that fathers who took 14-40 weeks of parental leave were significantly less likely to show signs of depression than fathers who only took up to four weeks of leave. Fathers who took 5–13 weeks did not show the same pattern, and neither did those who took more than 40 weeks, when compared with the up‑to‑four‑weeks group.
In Sweden, each parent has 90 non-transferable parental leave days (about 13 weeks).
“Our results suggest that fathers who take parental leave beyond the 90 days, but not more than 60 per cent of the total leave, may have better mental health, says Michael Wells, docent at the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health at Karolinska Institutet, who conducted the study together with Jingyi Wang at the same department.
More secure in the parenting role
A hypothesis is that having sustained time at home helps fathers build a closer connection with their child, feel more secure in the parenting role and establish everyday routines, which may, in turn, reduce the risk of depressive symptoms.
At the same time, the researchers emphasise that the study is observational and therefore cannot establish cause and effect. Another limitation is that information on parental leave was based on fathers’ self-reports.
The study was carried out together with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in China and was funded by Region Stockholm.
