In 2002, New Zealand became one of the last Organisation for Economic Co-operation (OECD) countries to pass a paid parental leave policy. As of 2025, the United States is the only remaining OECD nation to not offer a federal paid parental leave program. The following study is an effort to understand the benefits and discover the real-life impacts that the country’s Parental Leave & Employment Protection Act has on families through a set of interviews with mothers in New Zealand. In exploring these impacts and understanding experiences of mothers in New Zealand, the research was informed by a constructivist grounded theory approach (Charmaz) in a mixed-methods design consisting of a preliminary survey ( n = 58) and semi-structured interviews ( n = 11). By interviewing mothers about their experiences with maternity leave and how the policies available to them impact their experience with their newborns and personal well-being, the research identified four recurring and interconnected themes: a positive feeling about returning to work, increase in benefits to maternal and infant health care, an inherent need to manage finances, and the significant impact of external advantages within the community.
Jessica L. Ciccone (Wed,) studied this question.
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