Oct 18, 2026Data

The Right to Return

See how long each parent’s job could be protected after a birth.

How to use this project

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How to explore

Leave laws can protect a person’s job while they care for a new baby. This project compares statutory maximum durations in 21 European countries; it does not show pay, eligibility for every worker, or the time families actually took.

Start with Sweden
Move from 1970 to 2024 and compare the maximum job-protected weeks recorded for a birth mother and a co-parent.
Follow one country
Use the two lines to see when either recorded maximum changed.
Compare the same year
Put all 21 countries on one week scale, then choose a row to carry that country through the page.
Separate the policy parts
Read maternity, co-parent, paid-parental, and second-parent measures without adding overlapping durations.

Job-protected leave: Time away from work during which the law records a right to return to the job; the time is not necessarily paid.
Birth mother: The parent who gives birth, matching the dataset’s maternity and birth-mother policy categories.
Co-parent: The other parent, which may include a father or another legally recognized parent depending on the country and year.
Paid parental leave: A recorded leave option with a payment, separate from whether the job is protected for the same length of time.
Sharing incentive: Extra time or money intended to encourage more than one parent to use parental leave.

Parenting leave laws · Europe · 1970–2024

The right to return

See how long each parent’s job could be protected after a birth.

A leave law can protect someone’s job while they care for a baby. It does not mean the time is paid, available to every worker, or used in full.

Sweden · 197025.7 weeks

Birth mother

0 weeks

Co-parent

Sweden · 202478.3 weeks

Birth mother

78.3 weeks

Co-parent

The same dataset definition is used in both years. Protection says nothing about how much of the leave was paid or taken.

01 · Change the year

Start with the legal right to return to work.

Choose a country, then move the year. Both values are maximum job-protected leave after birth, measured in weeks. Every view below follows the same country and year.

CountryYear: 2024Selected year2024

Sweden · 2024

Maximum job-protected leave

Longer tape means more weeks during which the law records a right to return to the job. The tapes do not show pay or actual leave use.

Birth mother78.3 weeksabout 1.5 years

Co-parent78.3 weeksabout 1.5 years

The two recorded maximums are equal in Sweden in 2024.

02 · Follow one country

Watch the two rights change over 55 years.

The orange line is the birth mother’s maximum. The blue line is the co-parent’s maximum. Move the year above or choose a point below to keep the comparison linked.

CountrySweden

Birth motherCo-parent

Selected2024

List the years when either recorded maximum changed

03 · Compare 21 countries

Put every country on the same week scale.

Each row compares the two maximums in 2024. Choose a row to follow that country through the rest of the page. Missing values stay missing rather than becoming zero.

Equal recorded maximums11 of 21

Positive co-parent maximum21 of 21

Largest recorded differenceIreland38.0 weeks

Order the rows by

Birth mother Co-parentValues are weeks

04 · Read the other rules

Job protection is only one part of the policy.

These bars show other maximum durations recorded for Sweden in 2024. Read them separately: categories can overlap, serve different people, and follow different payment rules.

Sweden · 2024

Four different legal measures

Changing the country or year updates all four. A zero means the dataset records no duration for that measure; it does not mean families had no other right.

Maternity leave after birth7.0 weeks

Mandatory plus optional maternity weeks recorded after birth.

Separate co-parent leave2.0 weeks

A distinct leave for a co-parent, separate from shared parental leave.

Longest paid parental option55.7 weeks

Either parent can use the longest paid option

Extra time for a second parent12.9 weeks

No sharing incentive is recorded

Why this exists

The question

How did the maximum job-protected leave recorded for birth mothers and co-parents change across 21 European countries from 1970 to 2024, and where were the two durations equal by 2024?

What to try

Start with Sweden in 1970, move the linked year through 2024, follow both job-protection lines, compare all 21 countries on one week scale, and then inspect the separate maternity, co-parent, paid-parental, and sharing rules.

Method and limits

About the data

I discovered the European Parenting Leave Policies dataset in the allowlisted TidyTuesday catalog and followed it to the official Zenodo record and peer-reviewed data description. The dataset’s authors harmonized statutory maternity, co-parent, paid parental, and job-protected leave regulations for 21 European countries from 1970 through 2024. Zenodo identifies the dataset as CC BY 4.0 and provides the workbook, documentation, country reform timelines, and reference sources.

The reproducible standard-library Python builder downloads the exact TidyTuesday CSV at commit `f52bf606b830a0fdec1ef50780834558b77c3b59`. It verifies the 284,465-byte source against SHA-256 `f67265cbf1efc84638cc3faddbd382a81437bdaab0e65e6e24b8aec8d4ecf734`, then checks the required schema, 1,155 unique country-year rows, the exact 21-country set, complete 1970–2024 sequences, duration bounds, and policy categories. It retains maximum job-protected weeks for birth mothers and co-parents, mandatory plus optional maternity weeks after birth, separate co-parent weeks, the longest paid-parental duration and eligibility category, second-parent bonus time, and the recorded sharing-incentive category.

Repeated reductions produced the same 72,341-byte static snapshot with SHA-256 `4003d339c9f90b770d61c5cfed800ade7d19f72000227042e49de5f3f44f0ef8`. The page imports that snapshot and makes no runtime request. Durations are displayed in weeks to one decimal place; a rough year equivalent uses 52.18 weeks only as a reading aid. Missing co-parent job-protection values stay missing and are excluded from equal-duration and largest-difference counts rather than being converted to zero.

The main comparison uses each policy’s statutory maximum duration, not a sum of leave types. Maternity, co-parent, paid parental, and job-protected measures can overlap, apply to different people, and follow different payment or eligibility rules. The data describes national regulations, not employer benefits, qualification for an individual worker, payments received, take-up, family behavior, employment outcomes, health, fertility, or policy effects. Comparisons support description of the harmonized record and do not establish that a longer duration is more usable, more generous, or caused an outcome.

Skills used

Data analysis
Data engineering
Statistical reasoning
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Information design
Interaction design
Visual design
Creative coding
Product thinking
Editorial storytelling
Accessibility
Performance
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What the data shows

In 1970, the dataset records 25.7 weeks of maximum job protection for birth mothers in Sweden and 0 weeks for co-parents. From 1974 onward, the two recorded maximums are equal; both are 78.3 weeks in 2024.
In 2024, 11 of the 21 countries have equal recorded job-protection maximums for birth mothers and co-parents. All 21 have a positive co-parent maximum in that year, although duration alone does not show pay or eligibility.
Ireland has the largest recorded difference in 2024: 75.0 weeks for birth mothers and 37.0 weeks for co-parents, a 38.0-week gap. A difference does not show how families divided leave in practice.
Eight countries record 156.5 weeks for both parents in 2024: Czechia, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Spain. These are job-protection maximums, not three years of guaranteed pay.

Sources

Data Science Learning Community · Underlying dataset: CC BY 4.0European Parenting Leave Policies — TidyTuesday snapshot ↗Spitzer et al., Zenodo · CC BY 4.0The European Parenting Leave Policies (EPLP) Dataset ↗Demographic Research · CC BY 4.0The European Parenting Leave Policies dataset: Leave duration entitlements for 21 countries from 1970 to 2024 ↗