Paid parenting leave plays a crucial role in supporting families, promoting gender equality, and enabling parents to balance work and care. Yet, as leave policies have expanded and diversified across countries, the language used to describe them has become increasingly inconsistent. What may sound like a technical issue of terminology has far-reaching consequences for how policies are designed, compared, and evaluated.
This policy brief shows that the terms used for maternity, paternity, and parental leave are not neutral labels. They shape how rights are defined, how data are collected, and how evidence is interpreted by policymakers, researchers, and international organisations. Inconsistent or unclear terminology makes it harder to compare countries fairly, assess whether policies work, and learn from successful reforms.
Drawing on international regulations, policy databases, and academic research, the Policy Brief argues that traditional labels no longer reflect the complexity of modern leave systems. While national terms should be respected for their legal and cultural meaning, a shared and transparent framework is essential for comparison and monitoring.
The authors propose using “parenting leave” as a common umbrella concept at the international level, clearly broken down into mother-only, father-only, and shared entitlements. Clearer terminology, they conclude, is a prerequisite for better evidence, more effective policymaking, and meaningful progress towards gender equality and social sustainability.
The Policy Brief is based on Meil, G. and Romero-Balsas, P. (eds.) (2025), Towards a comprehensive terminology on paid
parenting leave, COST Action Parental Leave Policies and Social Sustainability
(Sustainability@Leave), DOI: https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/wkuam_v1