Photography: Mahmud Ahsan via Unsplash

Welcome to the Parental Leave Policies Quiz!

Supported by the University of York and as part of the 2025 Festival of Social Science, this Quiz tests your knowledge about parenting leave policies in the UK. What do you know about parental leave and do you have any ideas about how it can be improved?

At your own pace, please complete this Quiz about parenting leave policies and then watch a film about the latest policy innovation, Shared Parental Leave (SPL).

Does the film improve your knowledge of SPL? To answer this, please complete the Quiz again.

Then you’ll have a chance to share your suggestions for improving parental leave policies.

Who is this quiz for?

HR professionals, line managers, parents or carers can all participate!

Complete the quiz

The Quiz

There are 10 Quiz questions, followed by a just over 6-minute film about Shared Parental Leave (SPL). After you’ve watched the film, please complete the Quiz again to test whether your understanding of parenting leave policies was changed by watching the film.

Parental leave policies

1 / 20

How many weeks of leave does Shared Parental Leave provide to eligible parents?

2 / 20

How many weeks of Shared Parental Leave are paid?

3 / 20

To be eligible for Shared Parental Leave and Shared Parental Pay, a father/non-birthing parent must

4 / 20

As of 1 September 2025, how much is the weekly Shared Parental Pay?

5 / 20

To apply for Shared Parental Leave, the father/non-birthing parent needs the following information:

6 / 20

True or false:

The UK has the second-longest maternity leave in the OECD and the second-lowest average rate of maternity pay

7 / 20

True or false:

Using Shared Parental Leave, both parents can be on leave together

8 / 20

True or false:

Self-employed fathers/non-birthing parents are eligible for Shared Parental Leave

9 / 20

True or false:

The father/non-birthing parent’s eligibility for Shared Parental Leave relies on the mother/birthing parent’s work history

10 / 20

True or false:

Shared Parental Leave could be called ‘transferrable maternity leave’ because it is created out of the mother/birthing parent’s maternity leave allowance

Please watch the short video below and then go on to complete the following questions once more.

11 / 20

How many weeks of leave does Shared Parental Leave provide to eligible parents?

12 / 20

How many weeks of Shared Parental Leave are paid?

13 / 20

To be eligible for Shared Parental Leave and Shared Parental Pay, a father/non-birthing parent must

14 / 20

As of 1 September 2025, how much is the weekly Shared Parental Pay?

15 / 20

To apply for Shared Parental Leave, the father/non-birthing parent needs the following information:

16 / 20

True or false:

The UK has the second-longest maternity leave in the OECD and the second-lowest average rate of maternity pay

17 / 20

True or false:

Using Shared Parental Leave, both parents can be on leave together

18 / 20

True or false:

Self-employed fathers/non-birthing parents are eligible for Shared Parental Leave

19 / 20

True or false:

The father/non-birthing parent’s eligibility for Shared Parental Leave relies on the mother/birthing parent’s work history

20 / 20

True or false:

Shared Parental Leave could be called ‘transferrable maternity leave’ because it is created out of the mother/birthing parent’s maternity leave allowance

If you're interested in being contacted about your results or further parenting leave policies research, you can enter your details below. Otherwise, you can leave this blank and move on to sharing your feedback on how to make parenting leave policies better!

Share your thoughts on parental leave

What should we change about parental leave?

Now that you’ve got a bit more detail about how parenting leave policies currently work, we’d like to know whether you have any suggestions to improve it.

Imagining parenting leave futures

1 / 8

Imagining parenting leave futures

If you were Prime Minister for the day, would you change the length of maternity leave?

2 / 8

Imagining parenting leave futures

If you were Prime Minister for the day, would you change the length of paternity leave?

3 / 8

Imagining parenting leave futures

If you were Prime Minister for the day, would you change the length of Shared Parental leave?

4 / 8

How much would it pay for maternity, paternity and/or Shared Parental Leaves?

*Assuming 40 hours per week of work

5 / 8

If you selected other or would like to specify a certain figure for the previous question please enter it here. Numbers should be provided as pounds per week.

*Assuming 40 hours per week of work

6 / 8

Does taking maternity, paternity or Shared Parental Leave affect a parent’s career? How so?

7 / 8

The Labour government have just launched a review of parental leave policies. What information should they consider?

8 / 8

Anything else you’d like to say about maternity, paternity or Shared Parental Leave?

Interested in learning more about parental leave?

The links below include a bit more information about parental leave policies including the Government's approach, an article about the limitations of Shared Parental Leave and a link to the film you watched for this Quiz.
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Government review

In July 2025, the Government launched a review of parental leave and pay, inviting evidence from parents, experts and employers.
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Dragon Images/Shutterstock

The Conversation

The researcher leading this project, Patricia Hamilton, wrote an article about the limitations of Shared Parental Leave drawing on her research with black families.
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YouTube link to video

This short film was one of the outcomes of PLPUK, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie individual fellowship examining parenting leave policies in the UK since the 1970s.