Opinion | What Paternity Leave Does for a Father’s Brain (Published 2021)

Overall, however, we found that mothers gained most when men took paid paternity leave. Women whose partners took paid leave did not show the same rise in stress and in symptoms of depression as moms in the unpaid-leave group. In other words, men’s paid leave buffered risks to their partners’ mental health after birth.

These results dovetail with ot... See more

Paternity leave may not just be transformative for fathers, but good for mothers too. In a new study published in The Journal of Child and Family Studies, we measured sleep, stress and depression in couples recruited during their first pregnancy and followed across the first year of their baby’s life. We found that mothers showed better mental heal... See more

Paternity leave bolsters family relationships. Among 6,000 couples followed from when their child was a baby until kindergarten age, couples in which fathers took even just a week or two of paternity leave were 26 percent more likely to stay married, compared with couples in which fathers took no leave. Another study found that when fathers took pa... See more