# Method and data

The figures come from the EO statistics of the Federal Social Insurance Office (BSV), published in the PxWeb database of the Federal Statistical Office as table px-x-1304070000_102. The study uses the number of recipients, the average number of days and the average daily allowance per person, for maternity leave and for other-parent leave, all nationalities, by canton and by birth year of the child.

The canton is the canton the EO register records for the recipient; recipients living abroad are shown separately. The table's metadata does not say whether that is the canton where the person lives or works. The table's total is all cantons plus abroad. In every year from 2020 to 2024, the 26 cantons and the recipients abroad add up to that total for the maternity leave, and from 2021 for the other-parent leave too.

The BSV counts each birth year from the register at the end of April two years later. For the latest birth year it uses the register at the end of September of the following year and projects maternity and other-parent leave. That year is provisional, so the study gives only its total for all cantons plus abroad and ends every canton series at 2024, the latest final year. An allowance not yet drawn can still be claimed for up to 5 years (EOG Art. 20), so a final year may still change a little.

The ratio is the number of other-parent recipients divided by the number of maternity recipients in the same canton and birth year, times 100, rounded to one decimal. The change in the ratio is the 2024 ratio minus the 2021 ratio, computed before rounding. A change in % is the later count minus the earlier count, divided by the earlier count, rounded to one decimal. The ratio of the 26 cantons together leaves out the recipients abroad.

A canton with fewer than 500 maternity recipients in a birth year is marked as small numbers for that year.

The other-parent leave began in 2021 as paternity leave, so its series start with children born in that year. The table also holds care leave and adoption leave; their canton cells are not published (not yet collected or not yet computed), so the study leaves them out. The legal figures come from the EOG, the EOV and the OR in the versions named in the sources.