Parenting Journal · Volume 1 · Issue 5 · Licensed source edition
Paternity leave, mental health and wellbeing for new parents: evidence from a national survey in the UK
Originally published 2025-05-07 · SSM - Population Health
Elsevier · DOI 10.1016/j.ssmph.2025.101811 ↗
Working-family evidence
Work, care and the whole person.
Tests assumptions about paternity leave and mental health, retaining the overall null findings and the income-related differences rather than promising a universal benefit.
Directly examines work and family life, parenting, caregiving or employment policies for families.
Editorial reading guide · Trust
Whose wellbeing improves when fathers can take leave—and who is still left out?
Tests assumptions about paternity leave and mental health, retaining the overall null findings and the income-related differences rather than promising a universal benefit.
Study context
UK Understanding Society data for 1,385 fathers and 1,384 mothers of infants born in 2009–2019.
Age / stage: New parents and infants.
Read with three questions
- How were paternity-leave uptake, SF-12 wellbeing and GHQ-12 mental health measured?
- Why does the overall lack of strong association matter alongside the higher-income subgroup result?
- How might education, birthplace and selection into leave influence an employer’s interpretation?
Keep the limits in view
Observational survey models and subgroup analyses cannot establish that leave caused better mental health; findings reflect the UK policies and births studied.
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Original authorship, publication date, journal and DOI are preserved. This issue’s TRICK placement and reading questions are editorial additions, not claims made by the original authors.
Emily Humphreys; Stephen O'Neill; Veronique Filippi; Emilie Courtin (2025). Paternity leave, mental health and wellbeing for new parents: evidence from a national survey in the UK SSM - Population Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2025.101811
Permissions checked against the saved article notice; repository publication notices screened 2026-11-05. This is not a new peer-review decision. The source authors and publishers are not represented as endorsing this issue.