Policies that support working parents and gender health equity: needed research and methodological challenges.

In this issue of AJE, Platt et al (Am J Epidemiol. XXXX;XXX(XX):XXXX-XXXX) shed new light on the potential for supportive employment benefits, including family leave, flexible work hours, and employer provided or subsidized child-care to mitigate depression risk among full-time working mothers. The authors use a longitudinal study design and rigorous methods to carefully consider potential sources of bias, and, more broadly, their article underscores the importance of employment benefits as a social determinant of mental health for working mothers. In this commentary, we discuss some of the policy context surrounding employer benefits that support parenting, particularly around paid versus unpaid family leave laws and ordinances. We consider the ways in which the policy context impacts larger structural inequities and the potential implications for internal and external validity.