Following a change in the rules for earmarked parental leave, men are now taking significantly more leave, while women are taking less. The new rules, which were introduced almost two years ago, have had a significant impact according to data from the Danish Agency for the Labour Market and Recruitment (Star), reported by Sampension.
Since February 2023, the number of men on parental leave has increased by 26%, and compared to February 2022, the increase is 44%. At the same time, the number of women on parental leave has decreased by 10% since February 2023 and by 14% since February 2022. In February of this year, there were a total of 19,329 men on parental leave according to Star.
The changes in parental leave rules, which came into effect in August 2022, mean that 11 weeks of parental leave are now earmarked for each parent, compared to only two weeks previously. Anne-Louise Lindkvist, customer advisory manager at Sampension, states that the new rules have significantly accelerated the development.
“Since then, we have seen a significantly increased number of men taking parental leave, and the fathers who are already on leave now also spend considerably more time with their children,” she says.
According to the latest figures from Statistics Denmark, reported by Sampension, cohabiting men eligible for unemployment benefits who had a child in the last five months of 2022 took an average of 62 days of parental leave. This is an increase of 25 days compared to the same group of parents from the 2021 cohort.
“More parental leave for men is a positive development for economic equality, for example in the pension area,” says Anne-Louise Lindkvist. “A significant reason why women’s pension savings lag significantly behind men’s is that historically, women have taken the majority of parental leave.”