Abstract
Literature on the labor market and health effects of paid family leave largely overlooks the impacts on fertility, particularly in the United States. Increased childbearing following the introduction of a modest paid family leave policy in the U.S. could explain the contrasting short–term gains and long–term losses in women’s labor market outcomes found in recent work. We exploit the nation’s first paid family leave program, implemented in California in 2004. Using the universe of U.S. births and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that access to leave increases fertility by 2.8 percent, driven by higher order births to mothers in their 30s, as well as Hispanic mothers and those with a high school degree. Our results are robust to corrective methods of inference, including synthetic controls. Our findings may inform the discussion of a national paid family leave policy.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For studies on paid leave and women’s careers in the U.S., see (Byker 2016; Timpe 2019; Bailey et al. 2019; Rossin-Slater et al. 2013; Bana et al. 2018; Campbell et al. 2018; Das and Polachek 2015; Baum and Ruhm 2016; Stanczyk 2019) For studies of effects of leave across OECD countries, see Olivetti and Petrongolo (2017) and Rossin-Slater (2018), among others.
New Jersey implemented paid leave in 2009, Rhode Island in 2015, and New York in 2018 (though this policy incrementally increased each year until 2021). Both Washington and Washington D.C. implemented policies in 2020; Massachusetts did in 2021. Federal government employees have access to paid leave as of October 2020. The DoD also has a paid leave policy for its employees.
The average duration of paid parental leave in OECD countries (excluding the U.S.) is 57 weeks (Blau and Kahn 2013). In contrast, CA-PFL offers six weeks.
Examples of existing literature that find significant positive effects on fertility in other developed countries include: Olivetti and Petrongolo (2017), Shim (2014), Lalive and Zweimüller (2009), Hoem (1993), Raute (2019), and Dahl et al. (2016). Others find no significant effects: Tudor (2020), Dahl et al. (2016).
Further, paid leave’s potential as a pro-natal policy tool is particularly important as the U.S. faces record low fertility. The U.S. birth rate has dropped below the replacement rate, continuing a decade-long decline and coinciding with the lowest number of children born in the country in any year since 1968 (Hamilton et al. 2019). A birth rate persistently below the replacement rate often indicates long-term challenges of replacing the workforce and supporting an aging society. Many European countries expand family leave and childcare provisions as a means of increasing fertility and stabilizing the population (Shim 2014).
We utilize the heteroskedasticity adjustment from Ferman and Pinto (2019) for one treated unit but many control units to adjust for differences in treated and control group size. In addition to testing the sensitivity of our results to alternate post definitions and alternate control groups, we further use synthetic control methods as originally proposed by Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003) and furthered in Abadie et al. (2010, 2015).
Using Vital Statistics birth records, the first finds more previously childless women gave birth, while fewer women had later parity births in response to unpaid leave. The second analyzes mothers surveyed in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and finds that the probability of childbirth increases with maternity leave but that this effect is larger for higher parity births.
Cannonier (2014) finds that FMLA increased fertility, but only among high-SES, white women. This is likely because they were more able to self-finance, or have a partner who could finance, their leave.
Employees must have worked at their place of business for at least a year and for at least 1,250 hours over said year to be eligible. Additionally, only public agencies and private firms employing at least 50 workers within 75 miles are covered.
Mothers who have a Cesarean section could qualify for eight weeks of post-partum leave under CA-SDI.
This amount increased to 70 percent in 2018, but that is outside our sample window.
This policy is not a good fit for regression discontinuity because of the length of time between announcement and implementation, allowing parents to manipulate birth timing, and children born as early as August 2003 technically being eligible for the program, eliminating a clear point of discontinuity.
California public-sector employees may be covered if the agency or unit that employs them opts into the program.
The California Family Rights Act, an extension of the FMLA passed in 1993, requires employers of 50 or more employees to provide job-protected leave.
The geographic identifier of state is not included in the publicly available data after 2004.
Population counts for the denominator come from the SEER data detailed below.
The average age of first-time mothers in the U.S. was 25 years in 2006 (CDC NCHS). Female fertility significantly decreases after age 37 (The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Committee).
We primarily consider 10 years of data (1999-2008) from 50 states and Washington D.C.
Results are similar if we drop New Jersey altogether, or exclude New Jersey and extend the analysis through 2011 (see Fig. 7.)
Education is not reported consistently throughout our sample. Therefore, we interpret our estimates with caution. See Thunell (2017) for estimates by education and income.
For example, share white is the number of white females ages 20 to 39 divided by the total number of females ages 20 to 39, and share age 30-34 is the number of females ages 30 to 34 divided by the number of females ages 20 to 39.
The general fertility rate is generally defined as births per 1,000 aged 15-44 females but we use births to 1,000 aged 20-39 females for reasons explained above.
In the Natality data, we are unable to explicitly see either employment or take up of leave.
Appendix Fig. 7 shows the event study using data from July 1999 through June 2011, through the Great Recession. Because New Jersey implemented paid family leave in 2009, it is omitted for all years in this figure. Without New Jersey, there is a slight upward pre-trend prior to policy implementation. However, the DD estimate is similar to our main findings (2.539 additional births per 1,000 females 20-39 using data through 2011 versus 2.511 additional births per 1,000 females 20-39). Both estimates are statistically significant at the 1 percent level using robust standard errors clustered at the state level, but less significant using the Ferman and Pinto p-values detailed below (0.143 for the estimate through 2011 and 0.052 for our main estimate). Of particular interest in Fig. 7, the effect of CA-PFL on fertility rates dips slightly in 2008 and 2009, likely as a result of the Great Recession, but increases in 2010, and all estimates remain statistically different from zero throughout the post period.
Because all the control units are included in the omitted period, the cyclicality of births appears in the event study coefficients estimating fertility in California relative to the omitted group (all the control states and California in the omitted period). In the month level event studies, the omitted period is July 2003, 12 months before the policy was implemented.
It is primarily the lack of race controls that account for the pre-trend in Fig. 9. A. Figures with just race or just age controls are available upon request.
Throughout the paper, we will use the FP p-values to measure and determine statistical significance. The tables show both the robust standard errors in parentheses and the FP p-values in brackets.
Event studies shown in Fig. 12.
They estimate Black mothers had the largest gain in leave-taking, 10.6 percentage points, compared to a 7.1 percentage point increase among White mothers and a statistically significant 6.2 percentage point increase among Hispanic mothers.
Lichtman-Sadot (2014) finds evidence that women shifted births from the first half of 2004 to the second half.
Our event studies do suggest that women from all other states are collectively a reasonable control group.
We do not use SCM as our main method of analysis because the results are subjective to researcher decisions regarding inclusion of lags of both the outcome and control variables, and inference is more difficult.
Vermont is excluded because the hedonic matrix is assymetrical.
In results not shown, we find 0.22 fewer first births per 1,000 females 30-39 using SCM, but this estimate is not statistically different from zero. For both OLS and SCM, the increase in overall fertility is driven by an increase in higher order births rather than first births.
The ACS is considered preliminary and not necessarily representative prior to 2003, but it is the best data source, to our knowledge, to answer this question.
If we extend our analysis through 2010, the estimates for the additional years are slightly smaller but remain positive and statistically different from zero.
It is significantly less Hispanic and more Black
The number of children a woman entering reproductive years is expected to bear based on current fertility rates.
References
Abadie A, Diamond A, Hainmueller J (2015) Comparative politics and the synthetic control method. Am J Polit Sci 59(2):495–510
Abadie A, Diamond A, Hainmueller J (2010) Synthetic control methods for comparative case studies Estimating the effect of California’s tobacco control program. J Amer Stat Assoc 105(490):493–505
Abadie A, Gardeazabal J (2003) The economic costs of conflict: A case study of the Basque Country. Amer Econ Rev 93(1):113–132
Alm J, Dickert-Conlin S, Whittington LA (1999) Policy watch: The marriage penalty. J Econ Perspect 13(3):193–204
Alm J, Whittington LA (1999) For love or money? the impact of income taxes on marriage. Economica 66(263):297–316
Averett SL, Whittington LA (2001) Does Maternity leave induce births? South Econ J 2001:403–417
Bailey MJ, Byker TS, Patel E, Ramnath S (2019) The long-term effects of california’s 2004 paid family leave act on women’s careers: Evidence from U.S. Tax Data. No. w26416, National Bureau of Economic Research
Bana S, Bedard K, Rossin-Slater M (2018) The impacts of paid family leave benefits: Regression Kink Evidence from California Administrative Data. No. w24438, National Bureau of Economic Research
Bassford M, Fisher H (2016) Bonus babies? the impact of paid parental leave on fertility intentions
Baum CL, Ruhm CJ (2016) The effects of paid family leave in California on labor market outcomes. J Policy Anal Manag 35(2):333–356
Bertrand M, Duflo E, Mullainathan S (2004) How much should we trust differences-in-differences estimates? Quart J Econ 119(1):249–275
Bertrand M, Goldin C, Lawrence FK (2010) Dynamics of the gender gap for young professionals in the financial and corporate sectors. Amer Econ J Appl Econ 2(3):228–255
Blau FD, Kahn LM (2013) Female labor supply: Why is the United States falling behind? Am Econ Rev 103(3):251–56
Byker TS (2016) Paid parental leave laws in the United States: does short-duration leave affect women’s labor-force attachment? Am Econ Rev 106(5):242–46
Campbell Z, Chyn E, Hastings J (2018) The impact of paid maternity leave: Evidence from a temporary disability insurance program. Technical report
Chen F (2020) The unintended effects of california’s paid family leave program on children’s birth outcomes
Council of Economic Advisors (2014) The Economics of Paid and Unpaid Leave
Dahl GB, Løken KV, Mogstad M, Salvanes KV (2016) What is the case for paid maternity leave? Rev Econ Stat 94(4):655–670
Das T, Polachek SW (2015) Unanticipated effects of California’s paid family leave program. Contemp Econ Pol 33(4):619–635
Dickert-Conlin S, Chandra A (1999) Taxes and the timing of births. J Polit Econ 107(1):161–177
Donald SG, Lang K (2007) Inference with difference-in-differences and other panel data. Rev Econ Stat 89(2):221–233
Ferman B, Pinto C (2019) Inference in differences-in-differences with few treated groups and heteroskedasticity. Rev Econ Stat 101(3):452–467
Gans JS, Leigh A (2009) Born on the first of July An (un) natural experiment in birth timing. J Public Econ 93(1-2):246–263
Goldin C, Mitchell J (2017) The new life cycle of women’s employment: Disappearing humps, sagging middles, expanding tops. J Econ Perspect 31(1):161–82
Hamilton BE, Martin JA, Osterman MJK, Rossen LM (2019) Births: Provisional Data for 2018
Hoem JM (1993) Public policy as the fuel of fertility: effects of a policy reform on the pace of childbearing in Sweden in the 1980s. Acta Sociologica 36:19–31
Kahn JR, García-Manglano J, Bianchi SM (2014) The motherhood penalty at midlife: long-term effects of children on women’s careers. Journal of Marriage and Family 76:56–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12086
Klerman JA, Daley K, Pozniak A (2012) Family and medical leave in Technical report, Abt Associates September
Kleven H, Landais C, Posch J, Steinhauer A, Zweimuller J (2019) Child penalties across countries: Evidence and explanations. In: AEA Papers and Proceedings, vol 109, pp 122–26
Kluve J, Tamm M (2013) Parental leave regulations, mothers’ labor force attachment and fathers’ childcare involvement: evidence from a natural experiment. J Popul Econ 26(3):983–1005
Lalive R, Zweimüller J (2009) How does parental leave affect fertility and return to work? Evidence from two natural experiments. Quart J Econ 124(3):1363–1402
Lichtman-Sadot S (2014) The value of postponing pregnancy: california’s paid family leave and the timing of pregnancies. The BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy 14(4):1467–1499
Luci-Greulich A, Thévenon O (2013) The impact of family policies on fertility trends in developed countries. European Journal of Population/Revue européenne de Démographie 29(4):387–416
MacKinnon JG, Webb MD (2018) The wild bootstrap for few (treated) clusters. Econ J 21(2):114–135
Olivetti C, Petrongolo B (2017) The economic consequences of family policies: lessons from a century of legislation in high-income countries. J Econ Perspect 31(1):205–30
Oloomi S (2016) Impact of paid family leave of california on delayed childbearing and on infant health outcomes departmental working papers. 2016-08, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University
Persson L, Hoem JM (2014) Immigrant fertility in Sweden, 2000-2011 A descriptive note. Demogr Res 30:887–898
Pihl AM, Basso G (2019) Did California paid family leave imapct infant health? J Policy Anal Manag 38(1):155–180
Raute A (2019) Can financial incentives reduce the baby gap? Evidence from a reform in maternity leave benefits. J Public Econ 169:203–222
Rossin-Slater M (2018). In: Hoffman SD, Averett SL, Argys LM (eds) Maternity and Family Leave PolicyOxford handbook of women and the economy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 323–342
Rossin-Slater M, Ruhm CJ, Waldfogel J (2013) The effects of California’s paid family leave program on mothers’ leave-taking and subsequent labor market outcomes. J Policy Anal Manag 32(2):224–245
Ruhm CJ (1997) Policy watch: the family and medical leave act. J Econ Perspect 11(3):175–186
Shim J (2014) Family leave policy and fertility rates in OECD COuntries including east asia. In: Population Association of America 2014 Annual Meeting, Boston, MA. http://paa2014.princeton.edu/papers/140973
Stanczyk AB (2019) Does paid family leave improve household economic security following a birth? evidence from california. Soc Serv Rev 93(2):262–304
Timpe B (2019) The Long-Run effects of american’s first paid maternity leave policy
Thunell J (2017) Paid family leave and women’s childbearing decisions in the united states. Population association of america annual meeting. https://paa.confex.com/paa/2017/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/15479
Tudor S (2020) Financial incentives, fertility and early life child outcomes. Labour Econ, 64
Wooldridge JM (2006) Cluster-sample methods in applied econometrics: an extended analysis. Michigan State University mimeo
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Sandy Black, Rich Murphy, Steve Trejo, Marika Cabral, Francine Blau, Nicholas Sanders, John Cawley, Sharon Sassler, David Slusky, Alex Hollingsworth, Wendy Stock and seminar participants at the University of Texas at Austin, Cornell University, and DIW Berlin as well as participants in the 2019 Population Association of American Annual Conference, the 2019 American Society of Health Economists Annual Conference, and the 2019 Southern Economic Association Annual Conference for helpful comments and suggestions.
Funding
The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
All authors contributed to the study conception, design, material preparation, data cleaning, analysis, and drafting of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethics approval
The data used in this paper require restricted access from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) as state-level identifiers are not publicly available after 2004. As we cannot identify or collect additional information on specific individuals, IRB approval is not required for this project. We complied with all requirements of our data use agreement, specifically no cell or table reports any statistics for a group size smaller than 10 to maintain privacy. Consequently, we also cannot make the data publicly available.
Informed Consent
Not applicable in this study.
Conflict of Interests
The authors have no relevant financial or nonfinancial interests to disclose.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Appendix
Appendix
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Golightly, E., Meyerhofer, P. Does Paid Family Leave Cause Mothers to Have More Children? Evidence from California. J Labor Res 43, 203–238 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-022-09329-y
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-022-09329-y