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Parental leave benefits

Contact info

Labour and Income, Social Statistics.
Torben Lundsvig
+45 3917 3421

tlu@dst.dk

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Parental leave benefits

The statistics Benefits in connection with childbirth shed light on the use of the Maternity Act, including equality between mothers and fathers. The statistics have been compiled since 1995, but in 2017 changed data source. Since 2017, data from ATP / Udbetaling Danmark's IT system for the administration of payment of parental benefits in connection with birth, adoption, child illness etc.

Statistical presentation

The statistics annually calculate a parent's year's use of the rights the Maternity Act gives them, and the distribution of parental leave between the father and mother, as well as the number of persons, and amounts paid in connection with childbirth in the year in question.

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Statistical processing

The statistics data base is based on an extract of current maternity cases in the period May 2014 to date from ATP / Udbetaling Danmarks's administrative IT system, UDDK-Barsel. The extract of maternity benefit information is linked to a extract of parents from the Population Register as well as extracts from a number of other Statistics Denmark registers, to shed light on a parenting year's use of the Maternity Act.

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Relevance

The maternity and paternity leave part of the statistic is used by ministries for reasons of gender equality policy and of the unions and the employers' organizations in connection with collective bargaining agreements. The statistics are included as an important data element concerning analyzes of the productivity of the Danish workforce (economic model calculations), the labor market accounts, the statistics statistics on Public dependents and the absence statistics

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Accuracy and reliability

The statistics summarize the reports of birth or adoption that have triggered the payment of due to maternity leave. The expectation is that all cases are reported. However, there are a number of cases that will only be reported long after the end of the year to which the case relates, why the last year is not fully updated. In order to get a picture of a parent's year's use of the maternity law, it has been necessary to link several registers and set up an algorithm for calculating the parents' entitlement. There is a risk of programming errors here, just as the algorithm rules are a choice.

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Timeliness and punctuality

The statistics are published annually in the month of March-April the year after the reference year. March-April is chosen as the compromise of current interest and waiting for the last reports of the year to appear. At publishing time the newest data will be less than three months old.

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Comparability

The statistics are very much influenced by local Danish legislation, which makes comparison with similar statistics from other countries difficult. In addition, the algorithm calculation that determines whether parents are eligible to take maternity leave on daily benefits, and should therefore be included in the counts with zero days if they are eligible and there is no registration, does not exist in a similar way in other countries.

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Accessibility and clarity

These statistics are published in StatBank under Benefits.'

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