Abstract
The USA falls behind all other developed nations when it comes to offering paid parental leave. Since the Family Medical Leave Act was implemented in 1993, few changes have been made at the state level, but no changes at the federal level. Even though some states mandate paid parental leave and some employers opt to offer this benefit to their employees, there is no mandated paid leave at the federal level. This research investigates the impact of paid parental leave on parents’ labor market outcomes such as leave-taking, hours worked, and change in employers. Parental leave-taking has been proven to impact children, parents, and the family unit positively. This project uses Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey data and employs a multivariate triple difference analysis. Our main findings are that when a paid leave program is available, mothers increase the maternal use of time off from work by 4.3% points during the child’s first year, the equivalent of 2.24 additional weeks. They also are 41% more likely to take time off from work than before the paid parental leave was implemented. State-level paid leave programs increase leave-taking among fathers by a factor of 3.5, which amounts to almost one more workweek of paid leave used. The number of employers and the number of hours and weeks worked decline for fathers who have access to paid leave, but the magnitude of the effect is very small.
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Most recently, the Federal Employee Paid Leave Act (FEPLA) was passed and extends paid leave up to 12 weeks for certain categories of Federal employees. Benefits under FEPLA began with the birth or adoption/foster care placement taking place on or after October 1, 2020 (Office of Human Resources Management). https://www.commerce.gov/hr/paid-parental-leave-federal-employees
Benefits for Oregon begin in 2023 and Colorado in 2024.
For a complete summary of all state paid parental leave policies please refer to the following site: https://www.nationalpartnership.org/our-work/resources/economic-justice/paid-leave/state-paid-family-leave-laws.pdf
National Partnership for Women & Families. State Paid Family & Medical Leave Insurance Laws, October 2022.
National Partnership for Women & Families. State Paid Family & Medical Leave Insurance Laws, October 2022.
National Partnership for Women & Families. State Paid Family & Medical Leave Insurance Laws, October 2022.
For a complete summary of state paid family leave laws please go to https://www.nationalpartnership.org/our-work/resources/economic-justice/paid-leave/state-paid-family-leave-laws.pdf
Because the exact month of birth is unknown and the survey is conducted in February, March, and April, we consider that most mothers/fathers with children younger than one in 2004 welcomed the child into their household in 2003, when the program was not available. Therefore, 2004 is considered pre-treatment. The same intuition is applied to the other three states. This approach also follows Rossin-Slater et al. (2013).
When the age of the oldest child, profession, or industry are included in the analysis, the results do not change.
For example, the upper limit for the second quintile was $$49,741 in 2000 and $52,179 in 2020. That represents a change of almost 5% during the analyzed period.
Even though data for 2021 is available, we do not include information for that year. This approach tries to exclude the effects of unusual working conditions caused by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Compensation Survey.
The paper may not capture all the effects if women had one employer last calendar year and returned to a different one in the current year (since data is collected for the previous year).
For additional information please visit https://www.workforcehub.com/blog/californias-pregnancy-disability- leave-fmla-and-paid-leave-an-overview-for-hr/
When using neighboring states as the control group, the effects are smaller in magnitude but remain statistically significant at the 1% level.
Household income for the first two quintiles is lower than $38,000. Household income for the third quintile ranges between $38,000 and $61,500, while the fourth quintile ranges between $61,500 and $100,000. The last quintile has a household income higher than $100,000.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by Anca Traian. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Jill Hayter, Anca Traian, and Christy Spivey and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Appendices
Appendix 1 Descriptive statistics for mothers (independent variables)
ChildU1 = 1 Post = 0 PFLstate = 1 | ChildU1 = 1 Post = 1 PFLstate = 1 | ChildU1 = 0 Post = 0 PFLstate = 1 | ChildU1 = 0 Post = 1 PFLstate = 1 | ChildU1 = 0 PFLstate = 0 | ChildU1 = 1 PFLstate = 0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
White | 0.78 | 0.75 | 0.75 | 0.73 | 0.80 | 0.80 |
(0.0100) | (0.0104) | (0.0018) | (0.0018) | (0.0006) | (0.0032) | |
Black | 0.12 | 0.07 | 0.14 | 0.08 | 0.14 | 0.14 |
(0.0076) | (0.0065) | (0.0014) | (0.0012) | (0.0005) | (0.0029) | |
Married | 0.74 | 0.74 | 0.47 | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.69 |
(0.0105) | (0.0104) | (0.0021) | (0.0020) | (0.0007) | (0.0036) | |
HH graduate | 0.22 | 0.18 | 0.25 | 0.20 | 0.27 | 0.24 |
(0.0097) | (0.0091) | (0.0018) | (0.0016) | (0.0006) | (0.0033) | |
Some college | 0.25 | 0.27 | 0.29 | 0.31 | 0.32 | 0.30 |
(0.0101) | (0.0105) | (0.0019) | (0.0019) | (0.0007) | (0.0036) | |
College graduate | 0.45 | 0.47 | 0.36 | 0.38 | 0.32 | 0.38 |
(0.0121) | (0.0118) | (0.0021) | (0.0020) | (0.0007) | (0.0037) | |
Age | 30.67 | 31.08 | 39.74 | 40.06 | 39.88 | 29.08 |
(0.1531) | (0.1376) | (0.0543) | (0.0537) | (0.0190) | (0.0455) | |
No of children in the hh | 1.87 | 1.85 | 0.89 | 0.89 | 0.86 | 1.85 |
(0.0250) | (0.0236) | (0.0045) | (0.0044) | (0.0015) | (0.0077) | |
Log of hh income | 11.16 | 11.24 | 11.19 | 11.24 | 11.08 | 10.97 |
(0.0219) | (0.0211) | (0.0035) | (0.0035) | (0.0012) | (0.0070) | |
No Obs | 2,462 | 2,231 | 77,686 | 77,428 | 768,704 | 27,273 |
Standard errors are presented in parenthesis. All statistics are weighted.
Appendix 2 Descriptive statistics for fathers (independent variables)
ChildU1 = 1 Post = 0 PFLstate = 1 | ChildU1 = 1 Post = 1 PFLstate = 1 | ChildU1 = 0 Post = 0 PFLstate = 1 | ChildU1 = 0 Post = 1 PFLstate = 1 | ChildU1 = 0 PFLstate = 0 | ChildU1 = 1 PFLstate = 0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
White | 0.80 | 0.79 | 0.78 | 0.76 | 0.83 | 0.84 |
(0.0086) | (0.0084) | (0.0017) | (0.0017) | (0.0005) | (0.0026) | |
Black | 0.08 | 0.05 | 0.11 | 0.07 | 0.11 | 0.09 |
(0.0058) | (0.0046) | (0.0013) | (0.0010) | (0.0004) | (0.0022) | |
Married | 0.88 | 0.86 | 0.51 | 0.51 | 0.54 | 0.85 |
(0.0068) | (0.0072) | (0.0021) | (0.0019) | (0.0007) | (0.0026) | |
HH graduate | 0.24 | 0.22 | 0.27 | 0.25 | 0.31 | 0.28 |
(0.0088) | (0.0085) | (0.0018) | (0.0017) | (0.0007) | (0.0032) | |
Some college | 0.24 | 0.25 | 0.26 | 0.27 | 0.28 | 0.26 |
(0.0089) | (0.0089) | (0.0018) | (0.0017) | (0.0006) | (0.0031) | |
College graduate | 0.39 | 0.38 | 0.33 | 0.34 | 0.29 | 0.35 |
(0.0104) | (0.0099) | (0.0020) | (0.0018) | (0.0006) | (0.0034) | |
Age | 33.61 | 33.54 | 39.36 | 39.87 | 39.72 | 31.88 |
(0.1433) | (0.1354) | (0.0518) | (0.0486) | (0.0182) | (0.0460) | |
No of children in the hh | 2.01 | 2.00 | 0.81 | 0.84 | 0.78 | 2.00 |
(0.0234) | (0.0214) | (0.0044) | (0.0042) | (0.0015) | (0.0077) | |
Log of hh income | 11.16 | 11.16 | 11.27 | 11.27 | 11.16 | 11.02 |
(0.0170) | (0.0171) | (0.0034) | (0.0032) | (0.0011) | (0.0058) | |
No Obs | 3,114 | 3,047 | 82,439 | 88,760 | 819,477 | 32,456 |
Standard errors are presented in parenthesis. All statistics are weighted.
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Hayter, J., Spivey, C. & Traian, A. The effects of paid family leave on parents' labor market outcomes. Int Rev Econ 71, 225–255 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-023-00441-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-023-00441-8