Evaluation of the flexible parental leave scheme

New parental leave rules entered into force in 2002. Commissioned by the Ministry of Family and Consumer Affairs, SFI – The Danish National Centre for Social Research mapped how parents, municipalities and selected workplaces apply the new rules, and what they think of them. For each of the three groups, both a qualitative study and a survey were conducted.
Women take far more leave than men, but both sexes are content with this division of responsibilities. A majority of women and men do not favour earmarking a specific period of leave for the mother and father, respectively, as well as a period that the mother and the father can share as they please. However, a significant minority of men, namely 40 per cent, would prefer specific allocation of parental leave.
The study also shows that municipalities consider the rules to be an administrative burden in a number of areas. Contributing to the burden is that fact that the IT system that supports administration of parental leave rules does not work as well as it should.
Around two-thirds of the workplaces asked are open to employees’ wishes for individual agreements on leave. However, they also stress that the rules need to be made simpler.