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06 Mar 24 | News

Parenting leave policy data gaps: a comparative critical analysis

LISER researcher Marie Valentova, contributed to an international report prepared and released under the EU project “Paid Parental Leave Policies and Social Sustainability” funded by the EU COST Action funding scheme.

The report provides a comprehensive overview of data gaps in existing comparative surveys; comparative leave policy indicators databases, and administrative data at the national levels. 

A critical analysis of the conceptualization and measurement of parental leave covers ten comparative surveys. The report also provides an insight into publicly available comparative leave policy indicators produced by the International Network on Leave Policies & Research (LP&R), databases of international organisations (EU, CoE, OECD and ILO), and data provided by research institutions and researchers. National-level administrative and survey data on the use of paid maternity, paternity and parental leave, provided by members of this COST Action project is also critically appraised. 

The report is available here

LISER researcher Marie Valentova, of the Living Conditions department, contributed to two chapters of the report:

Ivana Dobrotic, Elitsa Dimitrova, Marie Valentova, Murat Mercan, Kalina Ilieva, Zsuzsanna Makay, Thordis Reimer, Ásdís Aðalbjörg Arnalds, Alžbeta Bártova: European comparative surveys: what can we learn (or not) about parenting leave policy? In: Dobrotic, I. and  Arnalds, A.A. (eds) (2023), Available parenting leave policy data and parenting leave policy data gaps, COST Action Parental Leave Policies and Social Sustainability (Sustainability@Leave), available here

Ivana Dobrotic, Keonhi Son, Cassandra Engeman, Marie Valentova, Tolga Aksoy:  Comparative leave policy databases: which leave policy design elements are monitored through comparative leave policy indicators? In: Dobrotic, I. and  Arnalds, A.A. (eds) (2023), Available parenting leave policy data and parenting leave policy data gaps, COST Action Parental Leave Policies and Social Sustainability (Sustainability@Leave), available here

About COST Action "Parental Leave Policies & Social Sustainability" (CA21150)

The Action aims to advance and disseminate research and knowledge about the significance of paid parental leave (PPL) for the social sustainability of societies. Its aim is to set the scene for future PPL research from the new perspective of social sustainability while making the field more coherent across disciplines and beyond academia. The main challenges are to build the network, identify and fill gaps in PPL research, develop a future-oriented and cross-disciplinary PPL terminology, and facilitate future research by closing the PPL data gap.

Five Working Groups (WGs) will be established to focus on the following:

(1) The development of a theoretical framework;

(2) the identification of social inequalities through PPL policies;

(3) the relevance of PPL for child development;

(4) providing a future-oriented PPL terminology and

(5) the expansion of PPL data.