Strong family bonds and nurturing environments are the foundation of healthy child development. From birth, babies rely on consistent, responsive care to feel safe, valued, and emotionally secure. These early experiences shape not only their physical and psychosocial development, but also their mental health outcomes across the lifespan.
According to attachment theory, secure attachment, formed when caregivers are emotionally available and attuned, helps children regulate emotions, build resilience, and develop trust in others. In contrast, insecure attachment, which can result from inconsistent or emotionally distant caregiving, is linked to a range of mental health challenges including depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and lower life satisfaction.
Secure attachment can buffer the effects of early trauma and reduce the risk of suicidal behaviour. This is especially relevant in Australia, where the youth suicide rate was much higher than in many other countries like the UK, Italy, Denmark, Canada and Ireland. This underscores the urgent need to address mental health vulnerabilities from the earliest stages of life.
If secure attachment can reduce the risk of mental health issues, then supporting parents to foster it should be a national priority.
One of the most effective ways to promote secure attachment is through consistent, close-contact time between parents and infants, especially in the first year of life. This is when babies are most sensitive to emotional cues, and begin forming their foundational sense of safety and trust. However, many parents face the difficult task of balancing their child’s needs with work responsibilities, career progression, and financial pressures.
This is where paid parental leave becomes a powerful tool.
Paid parental leave allows parents to spend uninterrupted time with their newborns, supporting emotional bonding and reducing stress. It’s not just a workplace benefit, it’s a public health strategy. Research shows that paid leave improves infant development, lowers rates of postpartum depression and intimate partner violence, and reduces financial stress. One study even found that infants whose parents took paid leave showed distinct EEG brain patterns, suggesting more advanced neurological development.
Despite these benefits, Australia’s current parental leave policy falls short. The government scheme offers 24 weeks of leave at the national minimum wage. This places Australia second-lowest in the OECD for paid parental leave generosity. In contrast, countries like Estonia offer up to 85 weeks, while Sweden, Norway, and Germany provide over a year of leave with high wage replacement rates. These nations demonstrate a stronger commitment to child wellbeing and parental support.
From an attachment perspective, longer and better-paid leave enables parents to provide the consistent, responsive care that infants need to form secure attachments. It reduces the need for early reliance on external childcare, which may not always offer the individualized attention babies require. By giving parents the time and financial stability to focus on caregiving, paid leave helps lay the foundation for lifelong emotional resilience and mental health.
Improving Australia’s parental leave policy is not just about workplace fairness or gender equity, it’s about safeguarding the mental health of future generations. It’s a public health imperative.
That’s why advocacy groups like The Parenthood are campaigning for one year of paid parental leave at replacement wage, shared between parents. This policy would not only support families, but also help reduce the long-term burden of mental health issues by promoting secure attachment from the start.
In a country where youth mental health challenges are rising, we must invest in solutions that begin at birth. Paid parental leave is one of the most evidence-based, cost-effective ways to do just that.
Author: Phoebe Lovett, Valuing Children Initiative Child Participation Specialist
