Parental Rights Survey 2019

(Formerly the Maternity and Paternity Rights Survey series)

This report brings together the key findings from the 2019 Parental Rights Survey (formerly the Maternity and Paternity Rights Survey series), which was commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Government Equalities Office (GEO), with input from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Department for Education (DfE). It was carried out by BMG Research with expert advisers from the Institute for Employment Studies.

You can read the Shared Parental Leave Evaluation Report here. It assesses whether the implementation of Shared Parental Leave achieved its original objectives.

The principal objective of the 2019 Parental Rights Survey was to interview a ‘core’ representative sample of c. 2,000 mothers and c. 1,000 fathers (or second parents) of children born between May and September 2017 (so aged approximately 18-24 months).

In addition to the ‘core sample’ of mothers and fathers, to support the evaluation of the Shared Parental Leave and Pay (SPL&P) policy, the survey also included an additional boost sample of parents who had taken SPL.

The findings from this survey are therefore based on the following achieved interviews: 1,959 ‘core mothers’, 1,062 ‘core fathers’ and 336 parents from both the core and boost sample that took SPL (referred to in the report as ‘SPL parents’). It should be noted that all fieldwork took place before the start of the pandemic, and therefore before hybrid-working had become common practice.

More details on the survey aims, background and methodology are contained within the introduction to this report, as well as in a separate technical report.