Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Parental Rights Survey, previously titled the Maternity and Paternity Rights Survey series (MPRS) and the Maternity Rights Survey, has been monitoring the take-up of maternity benefits and mothers' decisions relating to childcare and employment following the birth of the child since the late 1970s, covering changes to maternity and parental rights legislation and their effects over time. The 1993, 2002, 2009-2010 and 2019 surveys are currently held at the UK Data Service.
Maternity and Paternity Rights Survey, 2009-2010 The 2009-2010 survey benchmarks key policy changes since the 2007 survey, including the Work and Families Act 2006. The survey was commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, and carried out by NatCen Social Research. The aims of the survey were: to examine the impact of the 2007 maternity rights legislative changes on mothers engagement and experience in the labour market prior to, and following, the birth through tracking changes from the 2007 surveyto provide a detailed, statistically representative, up-to-date picture of mothers experiences and take up of maternity rights and benefits to identify the impact of the 2007 legislative changes, and to provide a baseline against which the impact of future changes can be measured to identify differences in take-up and eligibility (including all types of leave and pay, including Occupational Maternity Pay) related to individual characteristics, job characteristics and employer characteristics and how it has changed following the introduction of the 2007 reformsto examine what enables women returners to remain in work, to explore the choices and constraints behind non-working mothers remaining out of the labour market post childbirth and what would enable them to return to work including childcare usageto examine fathers take-up of paternity leave and paternity pay in order to collect robust data on the various provisions for fathers during and after the mothers pregnancyto explore the attitudes of both fathers and mothers on sharing the childcare responsibility during the six months additional maternity leaveFor the second edition (January 2024), the fathers survey data file has been added.
Main Topics:
The main topics included: mothers’ engagement and experience in the labour market prior to, and following birth; mothers’ experiences and take up of maternity rights and benefits to identify the impact of the 2007 legislative changes; what enables women returners to remain in work; to explore the choices and constraints behind non-working mothers remaining out of the labour market post childbirth and what would enable them to return to work including childcare usage; fathers’ take-up of paternity leave and paternity pay; attitudes of both fathers and mothers on sharing the childcare.
Multi-stage stratified random sample
Telephone interview
Face-to-face interview
