This special issue focuses on the designs, implementations and impacts of parental leave policies and the conceptual and methodological complexities involved in assessing, measuring and theorizing those designs. Each article in this special issue expands the contemporary debate on parental leave and gendered power and inequalities by engaging with intersectional analyses and exploring the methodological complexities of assessing and measuring progressive social change. The issue also aims to reimagine work/care policies that could lead to more equitable and just social worlds. The interdisciplinary contributions in this special issue are based on papers that were presented at the 15th Annual Seminar of the International Network on Leave Policies and Research (LP&R), held in Toronto, Canada, in July 2018.

Special issue: Doucet, A., Dobrotić, I., Haas, L. and McKay, L. (2020), Guest editorial: Assessing and measuring the impacts of parental leave policies: intersectionality, policy entanglements, and conceptual and methodological complexities, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 40 No. 5/6, pp. 425-427. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-01-2020-0016