Paternity leave: A systematic review of studies in education and psychology from 1990-2019

Paternity leave is integral to transition to parenting and father-children bonding, providing fathers the necessary time to take part in an equal share of household labour. Still, policy legislation on paternity leave from work for fathers is not prevalent; therefore, there exists no comprehensive review of their potential impacts and benefits to guide educational and psychological research in this area. This systematic review aims to acknowledge the extent to which different paternal leave for fathers is studied, focusing on the shifts in the trends of the inquiry of the fathers' leave based on time, study location, research context, and sampling by addressing this gap. Methods A systemic review of peer-reviewed literature retrieved from electronic databases was conducted. A total of 1993 abstracts were included for the study and selected 141 published papers from 1990 to 2019 on the use of paternal leave were reviewed. The main findings were coded and analysed through NVIVO 12. Results The synthesis of the results suggested that there has been growing interest in paid parental leave regarding fathers in particular over time. The findings showed that the focus was on the effects of paternity leave on the transition to parenting and gender equality.

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