Statistical presentation

Data description

The statistics include absence due maternity leave where there is a payment from the government. This means that persons who are not entitled to receive benefits are not included in the statistics.

In order to be able to provide an overview of the use of the maternity leave for an entire year (birth year parents), the statistics have been extended with an extract from the Statistics Denmark's population register consisting of, year by year, the parents who gave birth to the child in the specified year.

Parent volume A parent volume for a given year consists of the parents who have a common child born in the year, and where the child is either born in Denmark or immigrated to Denmark within 14 weeks of birth. A parent couple can consist of a man and a woman, two women, two men or a single person, if the mother, for example, has had a child through an anonymous donor, or one of the parents has died.

Parental leave benefits entitled by the law According to the law, an employee is entitled to maternity benefits if he/she has been continuously attached to the laybour market for the last 13 weeks before the beginning of the period of absence and has been employed for at least 120 hours during this period, or if he/she would be entitled to unemployment benefits.

Parental leave benefit eligible in these statistics For the purposes of the statistics, a person is considered to be entitled to maternity benefits if he or she is either in receipt of unemployment benefits as a result of pregnancy or maternity or, in the calendar year in which the child is born, earns enough money to qualify for unemployment benefits of at least 80 pct. of the maximum unemployment benefit, or if other circumstances prior to the birth would qualify him or her to receive unemployment benefits at an equivalent level.

Classification system

The statistics use the following groupings:

• Role in relation to the child (father or mother)
• Entitled to parental benefits (yes or no)
• Cohabitant (yes or no)
• Parents highest completed education at the time of birth
• Province at the time of birth
• The father's industry at the time of birth
• The mother's industry at the time of birth
• Sector for parents' workplace at the time of birth (public or private)
• Socio Economic Classification

Sector coverage

Payment of allowances due to maternity has as condition that the person has association with the labor market. Which allowed except for the graduates and the unemployed, requires hiring as an employee or self-employment. The statistics can be calculated for all the sectors appearing in The Register-based Labour Market Statistics.

Statistical concepts and definitions

Before pregnancy leave: Before pregnancy leave is leave taken during pregnancy earlier than four weeks before the expected birth. Before pregnancy leave is granted if the pregnancy has a morbid course or if the mother's work is of a nature that entails a risk of fetus or pregnancy and the employer cannot assign other suitable work.

Pregnancy leave: Leave for the last four weeks before the expected date of birth, or the date of the planned caesarean section. If the mother goes over term, the pregnancy leave is automatically extended. Conversely, pregnancy leave will be shorter if the birth occurs before the due date.

Compulsory leave: The mother has a duty to take two weeks' leave for the first two weeks immediately after the birth.

Maternity leave: Leave that can be taken by the mother from two weeks after to 14 weeks after the child is born. This maternity leave cannot be shared with the father, but if the mother is unable to take the leave due to ill health or death, the father can take maternity leave instead of the mother.

Parental leave: 32 weeks leave that can be shared between mother and father. The father can already after two weeks of paternity leave start on his part of the parental leave. The mother can start on parental leave when the two weeks of compulsory leave and the 12 weeks of maternity leave have been taken. Parental leave is also called joint leave.

Cohabitating parents: Parents of a common child and living at the same address

Statistical unit

The statistics are observed at the units:

Parent couple* A parent couple will often be the child's biological parents, but may also consist of persons of the same sex, and in cases where there is no registration of the father or of the mother, of a single person. A parent couple who have twins only counts once. A parent couple does not have to be cohabiting.

Persons
If the property that defines the count (e.g. industry) is person-related and not a property of the parents as a couple, father and mother are counted independently.

Parental benefit. The central unit of counting is the amount paid. Amounts paid to the citizen or to an employer as compensation for wages paid are converted into hours of absence using information on monthly earnings, working hours and the applicable maximum value for unemployment benefits. Reported hours are used, if available, to check that the conversion from kroner to hours is correct. Only in the case of a refusal to pay unemployment benefits, the reported hours are included as hours of absence.

Statistical population

For tables that are to illustrate the current costs of operating the Maternity Benefit Act , the population is the citizens who themselves or whose employer has received benefits under the Maternity Act.

For tables that are to illustrate the population's use of the rights granted to them by the Maternity Benefit Act the population is a parent year group, which for a given year consists of the parents who have a joint child born in the year, and where the child was either born in Denmark or immigrated to Denmark no later than 14 weeks after birth. A parent couple can consist of a man and a woman, two women, two men or a single person, if the mother, for example, has had a child through an anonymous donor, or one of the parents has died.

Reference area

Denmark Regions Municipalities

Time coverage

The statistics cover the years from 2015 onwards. However, the year 2015 is somewhat under updated for the 1st quarter of 2015 and partly also the 2nd quarter of 2015.

Base period

Not relevant for these statistics.

Unit of measure

The statistics are published on the units:

Parent couple A parent couple will often be the child's biological parents, but may also consist of persons of the same sex, and in cases where there is no registration of the father or of the mother, of a single person. A parent couple who have twins only counts once. A parent couple does not have to be cohabiting.

Persons
If the property that defines the count (e.g. industry) is person-related and not a property of the parents as a couple, father and mother are counted independently.

*Days of leave * An attempt has been made to define a day of maternity leave in a way that fits the popular perception of being on maternity leave. For example, a part-time mum who has been away from work for 40 weeks on maternity leave counts 280 days. The same is true for a full-time working mum who has been on maternity leave for the same amount of time, i.e. 40 weeks. A full-time mother who has partially resumed work will, all other things being equal, count less than 40 weeks.

*Full-time days In other contexts (e.g. the statistics Public benefits), absence due to maternity leave is presented as the number of working days lost, and then days is the number of days of 7.4 hours. A part-time (e.g. half-time) mother who has been absent from work for, say, 40 weeks due to maternity leave counts 140 days.

Reference period

1. The calendar year in which the child is born. However, all leave taken in the child's first year of life is counted, regardless of whether the leave period spans a year-end or not.
2. The calendar year in which the right to the money is obtained.

Frequency of dissemination

Data are published annually. Other statistics, e.g. Social benefits, publish maternity data on a quarterly basis.

Legal acts and other agreements

The Act on Statistics Denmark §6 (Lov om Danmarks Statistik §6, LBK nr. 610 May the 30th 2018).

Cost and burden

Only the It-suppliers of the responsible authorities have a burden because the data is collected from administrative registers.

Comment

More information is available at the subject page for Maternity benefits.