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The Impact of the Family and Medical Leave Act
Abstract
This article uses data from employer surveys and the March Current Population Survey to investigate the impact of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) on coverage, leave-taking, employment, and earnings. The variation in state laws prior to the FMLA and the variation in coverage under the FMLA provides a “natural experiment” in which the effect of the law can be compared for treatment and con-trol groups. Although the FMLA covers less than half of workers in the private sector (many of whom already had coverage pre-FMLA), this article finds that leave cover-age and usage did increase post-FMLA. The other surprising finding is that this mandated benefit had no significant negative effects on women's employment or wages. ©1999 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
... In 1993, US President William Jefferson Clinton signed into law the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave to qualified workers for covered family or medical circumstances. 1 Waldfogel (1999) shows that the FMLA is effective at increasing family-leave coverage for employees. Despite the fact that the FMLA does not require firms to pay workers during their leave, it may impose costs on employers whose workers take leave. ...
... Despite the fact that the FMLA does not require firms to pay workers during their leave, it may impose costs on employers whose workers take leave. For 58% of employees on FMLA leave, work loads are shifted to another employee, while 6% of employees on FMLA leave are replaced by temporary workers (Brown et al., 2020). 2 Although the FMLA is a genderneutral policy, women are more likely to file an FMLA claim; moreover, conditional on taking FMLA leave, the duration of leave spells are on average 14 business days longer for women than for men (Tompson 1997;Waldfogel 1999Waldfogel , 2001Brown et al. 2020). Given the cost of employee leave taking to firms and the differential use of the FMLA by women, it is plausible that the introduction of family-leave policies could have have differential impacts on wages by gender. ...
... For instance, evidence suggests that regulations designed to protect disabled workers may decrease their labor-market outcomes (Acemoglu and Angrist, 2001). There is also growing work that examines the gender-specific impact of family-leave policies in the labor market (see Waldfogel 1999;Trajkovski 2019;Patnaik 2019;Bailey et al. 2019;Balser 2020;Albanesi et al. 2022). Gruber (1994) finds that firms shifted the costs of state and federally-mandated increases in maternity-based insurance coverage during the 1970s to women's wages, but did not decrease their labor input. ...
... Only 12 states and the District of Columbia had laws that required employers to offer maternity leave (Irwin & Silberman 1993;Waldfogel 1994;Women's Legal Defense Fund 1993). However, it should be noted that both large and/or unionized workplaces oftentimes had maternity and medical leave policies that were, in some cases, more generous than state law required (Waldfogel 1999). This continues to be the case. ...
... A survey of employers done in 2000 also reflected these positive reviews (Waldfogel 2001). Waldfogel (1999) estimated that it cost an employer only about $250 per year for each employee that takes leave. ...
... Third, the law did increase the frequency of leave taking. The increase was found particularly at medium-sized firms that would have been less likely to have had pre-existing policies, and particularly for new mothers (Waldfogel 1999). An important consequence of the law is that it also institutionalized rights to parental leave, not just maternal leave; under the law men now have the same rights to paternity leave as women do to maternity leave. ...
This paper details the impact of the federal FMLA, as well as the complex web of additional protections many states have. Not all Americans enjoy the same rights to family and medical leave because 40% of them do not live in states that have written additional protections into state law. Pennsylvania is one such state. This paper offers a case study of the policy impact on citizens—particularly women, minorities, and the poor—in Pennsylvania, one of 21 states where lawmakers have not expanded their coverage beyond that of federal law.
... Two requirements set forth by FMLA reduce the number of eligible women: first, beneficiaries must be employed at their current employer for one year and, second, they must have worked for that employer more than 1,250 hours. According to Waldfogel (1999), about 54 percent of new mothers re-enter the workforce within a year of the birth of a child. However, only about 19 percent of new mothers are eligible for FMLA benefits, leaving about 80 percent of new mothers to look at privately-sponsored PCL programs (Latini, 2018;Ruhm, 1997). ...
... For example, FMLA, which was introduced in Chapter 1, was the first major legislation signed into law by in 1993 by newly elected President Bill Clinton. After the bill was vetoed twice by Clinton's predecessor, President George H.W. Bush, the passage of FMLA by Clinton signaled families would be important stakeholder in US policy of the 1990s (Waldfogel, 1999). In the PCL programs like FMLA, caretakers often receive job protection and other benefits enabling continued participation in the labor market. ...
... Therefore, care leave policies ultimately have gendered outcomes. In other words, caretakers (women) often experience negative labor market outcomes as employers decrease female employment or cut wages in an attempt to deflect the cost of the benefit (Waldfogel, 1999 Thus, mandated benefits can have a variety of labor market outcomes, including decreases in wages and employment. However, requiring employers to provide benefits is often seen as more efficient than a universal access provision (Colla et al., 2014). ...
Despite numerous positive outcomes associated with paid care leave (PCL) policies (i.e. maternity leave, family leave) such as wage replacement and job continuity, United States is a notable outlier among its peers as the only advanced nation without a federal paid leave program. Using a policy experiment around the 500-employee cutoff associated with the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), my dissertation examined US employer responses PCL regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. To identify how American firms perceive and react to PCL regulations, a unique survey was administered to 306 business managers in the New York and Boston metropolitan areas and analyzed through binary logistic regressions across 19 outcomes. Regressions were performed on the full dataset, subsets associated with the policy experiment, FFCRA users, and six additional subsets corresponding to different employee management structures. Concurrently, a document analysis-based scorecard of Fortune 500 companies’ actions during the COVID-19 pandemic established a triangulation device for the statistical analysis. In general, while 54.6 percent of firms reported cost concerns with PCL policies such as FFCRA, my results found that firms reporting PCL cost concerns were more likely to report non-employee focused operational changes such as increases in prices or a change in the number of locations instead of the predicted explicit employee-oriented set of outcomes such as layoffs or wage decreases. Furthermore, many outcomes resulted from firm characteristics – firm size, industry, and location – proving firm responses to government regulation is a dynamic and dependent on the unique circumstances of each company. As such, PCL cost concerns held significant predictive power across certain subsets of participating companies, such as FFCRA users who were more likely to change their employee headcount. Thus, the assumed cost burden of PCL policies is more likely to predict outcomes such as an increase in prices, while the central policy of my dissertation, FFCRA, may have been more disruptive than helpful for small American firms.
ProQuest: https://www.proquest.com/pqdtglobal/docview/2715797025/F76B79C9886D4F45PQ/1?accountid=12261
... A variation in the impact of the law by the state can be compared by estimating changes pre-and post-law across groups (Waldfogel, 1999). Because the purpose of the current study is to analyze the impact of the new regulation, we constructed two different time frames of analysis. ...
... Previous studies have found that DID estimation is one of the most important estimation strategies in applied economics to evaluate the effects of public interventions (Abadie, 2005;Angrist & Krueger, 1999). In addition, this methodology is superior to a simple timeseries analysis, as it compares a region that did not have a change in law to a region that did (Waldfogel, 1999). The great appeal of DID is based on its simplicity and its propensity to circumvent potential endogeneity problems. ...
... The great appeal of DID is based on its simplicity and its propensity to circumvent potential endogeneity problems. However, this approach might produce biased estimates if other differences exist between these two regions that affected both the passage of state regulation and the change in their outcome variables over time (Waldfogel, 1999). To cope with these potential biases to some extent, we used a difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) analysis, one of the ways to assess how the regulation affected the treatment and control groups over time. ...
On October 21, 2016, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law prohibiting advertisements for illegal short-term rentals. This study examines the impact of the regulation on the performance of peer-to-peer accommodations and offers new empirical evidence about illegal rental property listings in New York City. To achieve the study aims, a difference-in-differences technique was performed via a case study of 177,424 Airbnb listings in New York City and Washington, DC. The analyses showed that the monthly revenues of Airbnb listings that were subject to the regulation decreased in the period following the passage of the regulation, suggesting that the regulation was effective in restricting Airbnb performance. The findings can contribute to an ongoing regulatory conversation about short-term rentals and have immediate implications for state legislators.
... Thus, care leave policies affect male and female workers differently. In other words, caretakers (women) often experience negative labor market outcomes as employers decrease female employment or cut wages in an attempt to deflect the cost of the benefit (Waldfogel 1999). Further metrics such as labor force participation and increased income support are shortterm indicators and do not necessarily equate to positive results in the long run. ...
... to support women's employment may not have the desired economic effects. Waldfogel (1999) predicts that the costs of the leave provisions may therefore shift to women as a group, in the form of lower employment (as employers hire fewer women), lower wages (as employers reduce pay to women), or both. Globally, parental leave has negligible or weak positive outcomes on the female labor market (Olivetti and Petrongolo 2017). ...
... Two requirements set forth by FMLA reduce the number of eligible women: first, beneficiaries must be employed at their current employer for one year, and, second, they must have worked for that employer more than 1,250 hours. About 54 percent of new mothers reenter the workforce within a year of the birth of a child (Waldfogel 1999). However, only about 19 percent of new mothers are eligible for FMLA benefits (Ruhm 1997;Latini 2018). ...
Consistent with Pope Francis's efforts to eradicate social exclusion, most countries in the world have already adopted care leave policies in an effort to reduce the conflict between being an employee and being a caregiver. Care leave policies allow workers time off for family or for self‐care. Historically, care leave policies such as maternity leave are viewed as an employee benefit akin to short‐term disability leave, providing job‐protected time off for new mothers. This study reviews the literature of the short‐ and long‐run economic and societal effects of care leave policies globally, with a specific focus on care leave policies in the United States. Care leave produces positive labor market and health outcomes, including increases in leave taking, improvement in replacement wages, improvements to profitability and employee morale, increases in female workforce participation and continuity, increases in birth weight, and decreases in infant mortality. Despite positive effects, labor market inequalities such as decreases in female labor market participation rates, gender wage gaps, and occupational segregation are often promoted by care leave policies. The conflicted findings in care leave research muddle the anticipated effects of paid care leave but allow room for alternative policy recommendations.
... Our review identified several studies that evaluated the impact of the federal FMLA, which provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave, on various labor market and health outcomes. [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] Although the policy may encourage leave-taking 41,43 and return to work with the same employer, 42 most studies did not suggest that the provision of unpaid leave was accompanied by substantial changes in labor market outcomes. For example, using a DD design applied to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, in 2003 Baum concluded that the FMLA did not affect employment or wages. ...
... Our review identified several studies that evaluated the impact of the federal FMLA, which provides 12 weeks of unpaid leave, on various labor market and health outcomes. [35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] Although the policy may encourage leave-taking 41,43 and return to work with the same employer, 42 most studies did not suggest that the provision of unpaid leave was accompanied by substantial changes in labor market outcomes. For example, using a DD design applied to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, in 2003 Baum concluded that the FMLA did not affect employment or wages. ...
... For example, using a DD design applied to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, in 2003 Baum concluded that the FMLA did not affect employment or wages. 35 These results corroborate earlier null findings by Waldfogel,41 presumably because the leave is unpaid and short in duration, giving new mothers less control over their decisions about whether and when to return to work. 35 Using a similar design, a 2010 study by Goodpaster indicated that the introduction of the FMLA may have increased the probability that women left the labor force 1 year after giving birth, 36 whereas a 2012 study by Schott suggested women were more likely to return to work on a part-time basis. ...
Policy Points
• Historically, reforms that have increased the duration of job‐protected paid parental leave have improved women's economic outcomes.
• By targeting the period around childbirth, access to paid parental leave also appears to reduce rates of infant mortality, with breastfeeding representing one potential mechanism.
• The provision of more generous paid leave entitlements in countries that offer unpaid or short durations of paid leave could help families strike a balance between the competing demands of earning income and attending to personal and family well‐being.
Context
Policies legislating paid leave from work for new parents, and to attend to individual and family illness, are common across Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries. However, there exists no comprehensive review of their potential impacts on economic, social, and health outcomes.
Methods
We conducted a systematic review of the peer‐reviewed literature on paid leave and socioeconomic and health outcomes. We reviewed 5,538 abstracts and selected 85 published papers on the impact of parental leave policies, 22 papers on the impact of medical leave policies, and 2 papers that evaluated both types of policies. We synthesized the main findings through a narrative description; a meta‐analysis was precluded by heterogeneity in policy attributes, policy changes, outcomes, and study designs.
Findings
We were able to draw several conclusions about the impact of parental leave policies. First, extensions in the duration of paid parental leave to between 6 and 12 months were accompanied by attendant increases in leave‐taking and longer durations of leave. Second, there was little evidence that extending the duration of paid leave had negative employment or economic consequences. Third, unpaid leave does not appear to confer the same benefits as paid leave. Fourth, from a population health perspective, increases in paid parental leave were consistently associated with better infant and child health, particularly in terms of lower mortality rates. Fifth, paid paternal leave policies of adequate length and generosity have induced fathers to take additional time off from work following the birth of a child. How medical leave policies for personal or family illness influence health has not been widely studied.
Conclusions
There is substantial quasi‐experimental evidence to support expansions in the duration of job‐protected paid parental leave as an instrument for supporting women's labor force participation, safeguarding women's incomes and earnings, and improving child survival. This has implications, in particular, for countries that offer shorter durations of job‐protected paid leave or lack a national paid leave entitlement altogether.
... Evidence-based policy making are eligible. Empirical analyses show that average usage of leave did increase post-FMLA, but maternal employment did not increase due to this policy [1], [2]. ...
... A Canadian study finds that mothers' likelihood of returning to their pre-birth employers increased after parental leave was lengthened to more than 27 weeks [3]. Moreover, in the US context, evidence is found that firm-mandated leave does increase the return rate to the previous job [1]. By contrast, the generous expansion to three years of job-protected leave in Germany has not increased the likelihood for full-time working mothers to return to their pre-birth employers [4]. ...
... There is significant variation across studies and countries with respect to how large this wage drop is. Researchers have not found any wage effects for short leaves or for women who return to their job immediately after childbirth [1]. Post-childbirth downgrading of careers may be an important issue, but it has not been thoroughly researched. ...
Parental leave schemes have generally proven to be effective at promoting maternal employment and improving the work–family balance for employees. International experience shows positive results with parental leave periods that are not too short and not too long, i.e. not exceeding one or two years, while extended leaves seem to lead to increasing career costs to the mother.
Career costs accrue throughout parental leave and vary across educational levels. Both governments and firms should take notice of these costs, and should establish policies and practices to help reduce them during periods of leave, and provide incentives for women to return to work early. Women may self-select out of high-productivity jobs if they anticipate that it will be difficult to combine family responsibilities and high work demands. Women who want to return to work within the same firm may benefit from active mentoring programs (i.e. programs that help optimize the timing for return and create opportunities to return earlier). If the match between workers’ skills and job tasks is improved after return from parental leave, then women may catch up to other employees more quickly after leave, in terms of their career paths. Such policies are not necessarily costly to firms; by contrast, firms can actually benefit from retaining the best workers, while returning mothers will have more opportunity to recover the human capital and job-specific skills they may have lost during parental leave.
... This act provides unpaid leave of up to 12 weeks a year for of pregnancy, own illness, or illness of a family member to full time employees in firms with at least 50 employees (cf. Ruhm, 1997;Waldfogel, 1999;Tominey, 2016). Broadly speaking, "sick leave" implies that employees can take days off from work due to a short-term sickness such as the common cold or the flu, whereas "medical leave" (called "long-term sick leave" outside the U.S.) implies coverage for a longer-term more serious sickness of several weeks. ...
... However, there is also evidence that parental leave mandates may reduce the labor supply of women and job promotions (Bailey et al., 2019). On the other hand, Rossin-Slater et al. (2013) find that weekly work hours of employed women have increased because of the law, and Waldfogel (1999) finds no impact on women's wages or employment. Anand et al. (2022) find that access to paid family leave can avoid reductions in labor supply after spousal health shocks. ...
... While there is research linking shorter and non-paid parental leaves with adverse outcomes, policies at the federal and international level vary greatly. The current standard of leave for the United States is based on the Family Medical Leave Act, which provides employees with twelve weeks of unpaid leave (Waldfogel 1999), while the current standard of leave for European countries based on the European Union is 16 paid weeks (Your Europe). Due to the lack of standard paid leave in the United States many women are forced to return to work for monetary reasons rather than when they feel ready to return (Han and Waldfogel 2003). ...
... The United States does have the Family and Medical Leave (FMLA) policy which provides certain employees with 12 weeks of unpaid leave. However, this policy is heavily restricted, only being eligible for employees who work for an employer with 50 or more employees and worked for a minimum of 1,250 hours in the past year (Waldfogel 1999). Additionally, this policy only pays a percentage of an employee's full compensation, and many employees may be unable to take 12 weeks of unpaid leave due to economic reasons or fears of termination. ...
The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between parental leave length and maternal depressive symptoms at six- and twelve-months postpartum and whether this relation was influenced by women’s attitudes towards leave, whether leave was paid or unpaid, and the reason they returned to work. The sample included 115 working women recruited during pregnancy as part of a larger longitudinal study. Analyses revealed that maternal attitudes toward leave influenced the association between leave length and depressive symptoms. Specifically, longer leaves were associated with increased depressive symptoms for women who missed their previous activities at work. Furthermore, women who missed work and had leave for 16 weeks or more, exhibited higher depressive symptoms at six- and twelve-months. Last, results also indicated that women who returned to work solely for monetary reasons exhibited more depressive symptoms at six-months postpartum than those who returned to work for other reasons. This study is among the first to show that women’s attitudes towards parental leave and their individual reasons for returning to work are important factors to consider that may have potential implications for parental leave policies.
... Petrongolo 2017). Many studies have found positive policy effects: for example, that leave policies help women return to the labor force (Jaumotte 2003;Waldfogel 1999) and that flexible working conditions increase job satisfaction and well-being (Kelly, Moen, and Tranby 2011). However, scholars have warned that such policies may incur an unexpected trade-off between labor market inclusion and gender equality (Judiesch and Lyness 1999;Pettit and Hook 2009;Ruhm 1998); in particular, they argue that prolonged parental leaves taken by women may reinforce the traditional gendered division of labor (Bergmann 2008;Evertsson and Duvander 2011;Hook 2006;Jacobs and Gerson 2004) and decrease women's market activities (Gangl and Ziefle 2009). ...
... Research has primarily focused on a policy's impact on women's career outcomes (e.g., Boeckmann, Misra, and Budig 2015;J. Glass 2004;Waldfogel 1999). But recent work highlights how policies are implemented-that is, how managers interpret them (Brinton and Mun 2016;C. ...
Despite growing concerns that parental leave policies may reinforce the marginalization of mothers in the labor market and reproduce the gendered division of household labor, few studies examine how women themselves approach and use parental leave. Through 64 in-depth interviews with college-educated Korean mothers, we find that although women’s involvement in family responsibilities increases during leave, they do not reduce their work devotion but reinvent it throughout the leave-taking process. Embedded in the culture of overwork in Korean workplaces, women find it justifiable to use leave only when they are highly committed to work and adjust the length of leave to accommodate workplace demands. Upon returning to work, they try to compensate for their absence by working harder than before, thereby showing that they are more committed than their colleagues. Given this “compensatory” work devotion, women question their own entitlement in the workplace, and some quit when they cannot meet their goal of compensating by doing more than others. This study highlights how the workplace culture shapes women’s work devotion during and after leave.
... Existing research on the take-up of these policies generally has shown that the implementation of new or expanded leave policies leads to an increase in leavetaking rates among new mothers, as well as new fathers when the leave policy includes them. 13 In the U.S., Waldfogel (1999) found that the FMLA increased leave-taking by roughly 23% among mothers with children less than one year of age. In other countries, Baker and Milligan (2010) showed that an expansion in parental leave from six months to one year in Canada increased the leave duration among new mothers by about three 11 https://www.marchofdimes.org/peristats/ViewSubtopic 12 https://www.edd.ca.gov/Disability/pdf/qspflPFLProgramStatistics.pdf 13 Rossin-Slater (2017) months. ...
... 14 In the U.S., Baum (2003) showed that short leave provided by state maternity leave policies and the FMLA increased the probability that new mothers returned to their pre-childbirth jobs by roughly 30%. Waldfogel (1999) and Han et al. (2009) found that the FMLA had no significant impact on women's employment and wages in the long run. ...
The primary objective of the California Paid Family Leave (CA-PFL) program is to ease the burden of parenthood. One unintended consequence is that employers may bear the cost of the CA-PFL program and respond by changing their demand for those most likely to take-up the policy. I examine how the employment and wages of women of childbearing age (i.e., young women) change relative to men of the same corresponding age group (i.e., young men) in response to the enactment and to the implementation of the program. Exploiting variation in paid family leave access across industries and firm sizes, I find the CA-PFL program decreases employment for young women compared to young men by approximately 2.0% across industries and 3.0% across firm sizes. Furthermore, I find that younger women experience a statistically significant 0.2% decrease in wages relative to young men across industries and no significant change in wages when compared to young men across firm sizes. In conclusion, most women enjoy the benefits of paid family leave, but a few young women are unable to attain employment.
... Gilleskie (1998Gilleskie ( , 2010 represent notable exceptions but these two important studies pre-date the current debate on sick leave mandates. Few studies empirically evaluate the recent U.S. sick pay mandates primarily due to a lack of data. 1 In an early but related study, Waldfogel (1999) shows that FMLA increased 1 The European literature on paid sick leave is much richer. Several studies find that employees adjust their intensive labor supply in response to changes in sick pay generosity (Johansson and Palme, 2005;Karlsson, 2010, 2014;De Paola et al., 2014;Fevang et al., 2014). ...
... This Act provides unpaid leave to employees in case of pregnancy, own sickness, or sickness of a family member to employees who work at least 1,250 hours annually for an employer with 50 or more employees (cf. Waldfogel, 1999). Given the exemptions to this law, Jorgensen and Appelbaum (2014) estimate that only 44% of private sector employees are eligible for FMLA. ...
This paper evaluates the labor market effects of sick pay mandates in the United States. Using the National Compensation Survey and difference-in-differences models, we estimate their impact on coverage rates, sick leave use, labor costs, and non-mandated fringe benefits. Sick pay mandates increase coverage significantly by 13 percentage points from a baseline level of 66%. Newly covered employees take two additional sick days per year. We find little evidence that mandating sick pay crowds-out other non-mandated fringe benefits. We then develop a model of optimal sick pay provision along with a welfare analysis. Mandating sick pay likely increases welfare.
... The introduction of FMLA in the US in 1993 provided 12 weeks of unpaid leave and job protection for women working in workplaces with 50 or more employees (US Department of Labor 2020), however many women remained unprotected from job loss and even those eligible were often unable to afford to utilize it (Han et al. 2008(Han et al. , 2009Ross 1998;Waldfogel 1999). In New York City, mothers who took only unpaid leave were more likely to report food insecurity compared with those who had at least some paid leave provided by their employers (Slopen et al. 2015). ...
... 6.6 (5.8-7.4) 95% Confidence Intervals are provided in brackets literature on unpaid leave taking (Han et al. 2008(Han et al. , 2009Klerman et al. 2013;Waldfogel 1999). Additionally, while not significant in multivariate analyses, the challenges of low-income women who received government benefits during pregnancy in accessing paid leave further demonstrates that families who might benefit most from income replacement are least likely to receive it. ...
Introduction:
Paid family leave (PFL) is an important protective policy mechanism to support the health of mothers and children and the economic security of families This paper explores the links of employment and demographic characteristics on leave type and lengths of overall, paid, and unpaid leave in a large city in the United States.
Methods:
Using a sample of 601 women who worked during pregnancy from the 2016 New York City Work and Family Leave Survey, multinomial and linear regression models were used to assess disparities in the type and length of leave taking.
Results:
Women eligible for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) have higher relative likelihood to take only paid leave (RRR = 6.588, p < 0.01). While Black women utilized 3.739 weeks of leave more than white women overall, holding all else constant (p < 0.1), this additional leave is composed of 4.739 more weeks of unpaid leave (p < 0.05). Shortened leave taking by women with less than a college degree is driven by fewer weeks of paid leave (p < 0.01).
Discussion:
Using unique data from a survey of recent mothers in New York City, this study provides deeper understanding of disparities in the composition of leave. This study adds to the literature by identifying disparities in leave composition that are masked in consideration of total lengths of leave for Black women and those not eligible for FMLA protections. Given the consequences of short leave taking and reliance on unpaid leave, examination of leave composition is required to identify and address disparities.
... Preschool programs offering a healthy mixture of play and child-initiated discovery learning can be very valuable to young children, as children learn not by memorizing facts but by creating their own knowledge about the world (Piaget, 1962). According to Waldfogel (1999), young children learn best in an interactive, relational model rather than education model focusing on rote instructions making learning through play one of the most appropriate approach for teaching and learning in preschools. Shackell et al. (2008) believes that through play, children are able to explore the world, learning to take responsibility for their own choices while Brock et al. (2013) contends that learning through play enables children to learn through the restructuring and enrichment of processes, promotes new discovery and concepts as well as provides opportunities for the construction of experience and knowledge. ...
... These discoveries that children make may serve as a foundation of creativity or later innovations further on in life (Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2000). Stated simply, rather than an education model focusing on rote instructions, young children learn best in an interactive, relational model (Waldfogel, 1999). Play thus accords children with meaningful learning and makes the case for why "learning through play" as pedagogy is pertinent in the education for young children. ...
p> The National Preschool Curriculum (NPC) of Malaysia introduced “Learning through Play” (LTP) as one of the major teaching and learning approaches for preschools. However, for holistic growth, learning environment for young children should also emphasize on quality built environment that are planned in alignment with the vision and principles of LTP and consideration of children’s development psychology. The theory of affordances was utilized whereby the existence of affordance within the physical environment creates potential to be actualized and it is independent of the users, namely children. This paper examined application of available attributes and physical characteristics for LTP in private preschools within converted residential houses. For this purpose, four case study preschools in Johor Bahru were selected through purposive sampling for participant observation to observe available attributes and physical characteristics as well as gain an understanding on potential and actualized affordances for LTP in the respective preschools. After qualitative analysis, findings indicated that opportunities for learning through play within preschools were hindered by four main factors which included lack of materials, equipment and free will; allowable play and independent mobility factors; time factor and safety factor. </p
... The understanding of two income variables for the woman's decision to work -individual's earnings and total family incomehave led to an increased focus on the need to consider multiple types of income. Various scholars have addressed the factors that may affect incentives for unpaid housework, including family structure (Sasaki, 2002), childcare policies such as parental leave and subsidies (Abe, 2013;Waldfogel, 2001;Xuan, 2013;Waldfogel, 1999), and taxation (Xuan, 2013;Matsui, 2010). ...
... Prior to the Family and American women in the labor force. 11 states and the District of Columbia had laws providing protected maternity leaves in effect before the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act(Waldfogel, 1999). The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, widely recognized as the first federal law to provide maternity leave rights, requires employers with more than fifty employees to offer job-protected family or medical leave of up to twelve weeks to qualifying employees. ...
In the decades that followed World War II, the Japanese economy grew at a surprising rate, placing the nation among the ranks of the most developed in the world. Nonetheless, women – particularly married women – were largely confined to positions outside of the labor market due to traditional gender norms and subsequent lack of opportunities. While the absence of half of the Japanese population was negligible in eras of high growth, it is no longer a healthy option for an aging Japanese economy that has been struggling with deflation for fifteen years. Structural reform is needed, and more women must be invited to be active participants in the labor market. This paper studies the status quo of female labor force participation in Japan and compares its family policy, taxation, and flexible working arrangements to those of Sweden and the United States to draw meaningful policy recommendations for Japan. It is clear that Japanese policy falls short of correcting existing gender norms and policy must be reformed so that it reflects a more egalitarian stance.
... Therefore, care leave policies ultimately have stratified outcomes. In other words, caretakers often experience negative labor market outcomes as employers decrease caretaker employment or cut wages in an attempt to deflect the cost of the benefit (Waldfogel, 1999 Bartel et al. (2021) indicate employee performance after the implementation of a state-sponsored PCL is hard to measure, but there was no evidence the policy had adverse effects on companies and more than 50 percent of respondents were supportive of the NYS-PFL. White et al. (2013) cite similar favorable interpretations of PCL (in New Jersey), but also observed low awareness of the program's existence and ultimately low usage -low awareness and uptake is a common conclusion of many US care leave studies (Jelliffe et al., 2021;Kelly, 2010). ...
Despite established positive associations of paid care leave (PCL) policies on labor market outcomes such as wage replacement and job continuity, the United States is a notable outlier as the only advanced nation without a federal paid leave program. Assuming PCL programs are costly, my study examines employer perceptions and responses to PCL regulations in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Using a policy experiment around the 500-employee cutoff associated with the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), logistic regressions are used on a newly-created dataset constructed from a survey administered to 306 business managers in New York and Boston. The analysis ultimately seeks to evaluate if PCL cost concerns predict 19 different business outcomes such as changes in headcount or employee benefits. In general, while 54.6 percent of firms report cost concerns with PCL laws, the results find firms with such concerns are more likely to engage in non-employee focused operational changes such as increases in prices instead of employee-oriented outcomes such as layoffs or wage decreases. Furthermore, the policy experiment yields that large companies are more likely to increase internal paid leave, while small companies are more likely to increase the number of independent contractors at the company. My study confirms companies react to government PCL regulation in dynamic ways, dependent on the unique circumstances and culture of each company.
... The research around parental leave can be separated in two categories: research based on the family medical leave act (unpaid protected leave) and research based on state-level paid leave programs, primarily California (partial wage replacement), with many outcomes of each analyzed. Waldfogel (1999) was a pioneer in the area of research around FMLA. She found employers increased the leave coverage that was offered and more leave taking was utilized. ...
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.
... Hiriscau (2020) uses a regression discontinuity design to show that the reform had no impact on maternal employment 2 years after childbirth. These estimates are in line with the findings of some studies from the US that also conclude that there are no medium-or long-term employment impacts of short paid family leaves (Waldfogel, 1999). As discussed in Sect. ...
Post-birth career breaks and their impact on mothers’ labor market outcomes have received considerable attention in the literature. However, existing evidence comes mostly from Western Europe and the US, where career breaks tend to be short. In contrast, Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, where post-birth career interruptions by mothers are typically much longer, have rarely been studied. In the first part of this study, we place CEE countries into the EU context by providing key empirical facts related to the labor market outcomes of mothers and the most important factors that may affect them. Besides substantial differences between CEE countries and the rest of the EU, there is also large heterogeneity within CEE itself, which we explore next. In the second part, we review the main family leave and formal childcare policies and reforms that have occurred in CEE countries since the end of Communism and provide a comprehensive survey of the existing scientific evidence of their impact on maternal employment. While research on the causal impacts of these policies is scarce, several important studies have recently been published in high-impact journals. We are the first to provide an overview of these causal studies from CEE countries, which offer an insightful extension to the existing knowledge from Western Europe and the US.
... Hiriscau (2020) uses a regression discontinuity design to show that the reform had no impact on maternal employment 2 years after childbirth. These estimates are in line with the findings of some studies from the US that also conclude that there are no medium-or long-term employment impacts of short paid family leaves (Waldfogel, 1999). As discussed in Sect. ...
In this chapter, we study the relationship between grandparents’ availability for childcare and mothers’ work by analysing information that reflects three different points of view: the point of view of mothers, and more generally of families, who have the task of reconciling work and family; the point of view of grandparents, who may (not) be in a position to help their children with the care of their grandchildren; and the opinion spread in different countries regarding duties across generations. We analyse data from different European countries that, in recent years, participated in the following three surveys: the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, the Survey on Health Aging Retirement in Europe, and the European Value Study. We find a positive influence of grandparents’ help on mothers’ employment. Grandparents’ availability for childcare is influenced by their characteristics as well as by the characteristics of their extended families. Beliefs about the importance of work in life and the role of mothers in the society are, respectively, associated with the probability of giving help and asking for help.
... Slightly more than half of U.S. pri vate-sec tor work ers are eli gi ble, given FMLA firm size and work his tory require ments (Ruhm 1997). FMLA increased leave-tak ing by 23% among moth ers of chil dren under 1 year of age (Waldfogel 1999), with maternal leave-tak ing increas ing by 13% dur ing the birth month and by 16% dur ing the month after birth, and increas ing at a mar gin ally sig nifi cant level of 20% two months after birth (Han et al. 2009). Given lim ited cov er age and a lack of effect on eli gi ble men's leave, Han and Waldfogel (2003) con cluded that FMLA has lim ited impact over all. ...
This study exploits changes in paid maternity leave offered by one of the United States’ largest employers, the Department of Defense, to estimate the effect of such policies on mothers' leave-taking. Since 2015, the U.S. Marine Corps has shifted its maternity leave policy from 6 to 18 to 12 weeks. Leave expansions increased leave duration, whereas contractions decreased leave taken by active-duty service members. However, the policy changes crowded out other forms of leave: with an increase in maternity leave available, mothers increased use of maternity leave and stopped supplementing with additional annual leave. Although all mothers used the full 6 weeks of leave in the early period, it is the less advantaged mothers—those in the enlisted ranks, first-time mothers, and single mothers—who disproportionately used more of the additional leave than officers, experienced mothers, and married mothers. Pregnant officers, experienced mothers, and single women used less leave than nonpregnant women in the months leading up to birth, but expecting additional post-birth leave did not change average pre-birth leave-taking. Our results highlight the importance of optimally sizing family leave policies and provide evidence that the true cost of such programs may be lower than the raw count of weeks provided by additional maternity leave allowances.
... The Act applies to employees who work at least 1,250 hours per year for a firm with at least 50 employees (cf. Waldfogel, 1999). Jorgensen and Appelbaum (2014) estimate that 44% of private sector employees are eligible for FMLA. ...
Using the National Compensation Survey from 2009 to 2022 and difference-in-differences methods, we find that state-level sick pay mandates are effective in broadening access for U.S. workers. Increases in coverage reach 30ppt from a 63% baseline five years post-mandate. Mandates have more bite in jobs with low pre-mandate coverage. Further, mandates reduce inequality in access to paid sick leave substantially, both across and within firms. Covid-19 reinforced existing positive trends in coverage and take-up. Sick leave use increases linearly, whereas costs plateau after five years. Finally, we find crowding-in of non-mandated benefits which we label “job upscaling” by firms to differentiate jobs and attract labor.
... 1 There is a separate body of research analyzing the impact of unpaid leave policies, such as FMLA, on women's and men's leave take-up rates and economic outcomes (Han, Ruhm, and Waldfogel 2007;Han and Waldfogel 2003;Hyde, Essex, and Horton 1993;Klerman and Leibowitz 1999;Phillips 1998;Pleck 1993;Waldfogel 1999). 2 Models for a single policy intervention are commonly written as follows: Yisy = β0 + β1CAs + β2POSTy + β3CAs x POSTy + βjXjisy + αi + s + y + isy, where Yisy is an outcome for individual i in state s and year y, β1 is a coefficient for California that captures average differences between California and other states before policy implementation, β2 is a coefficient for the period after the policy was implemented (POST equals 1 starting in 2004 for all respondents across all states), β3 is the key interaction of interest that captures differences in outcomes before vs after 2004 in California vs other states. ...
The birth of a new child continues to exacerbate gender specialization among different-sex couples. This study considers the potential of paid leave policies to intervene in this key life-course juncture and promote more gender egalitarian divisions of paid and unpaid work. While previous research has examined the impact of paid leave policies on paid or unpaid work among mothers or fathers separately, this is the first study to examine comprehensively how these benefits shape both mothers and fathers and both paid and unpaid work outcomes. I use data from the Current Population Survey 1990-2020 and the American Time Use Survey 2003-2019 and quasi-experimental differences-in-differences models to examine the impact of the introduction of paid leave policies in California and New Jersey on paid and unpaid work outcomes among different-sex couples. I find that change was modest and uneven. California and New Jersey paid leave policies declined mothers’ and fathers paid work after new births, increased mothers’ care work but not fathers’, and increased fathers’ housework but not mothers’. On the whole, paid leave policies appear to have helped support mothers’ primary caregiver role while simultaneously encouraging a more gender egalitarian division of housework.
... Paid parental leave is one such benefit. In addition to providing a source of income following the birth of a child, it also promotes women's economic independence by supporting their continued connection to the labor market (Waldfogel 1999). Unlike maternity benefits it recognizes women's role as workers who, through their labor market participation, are autonomous individuals rather than dependent on a male breadwinner (Chapman 2007;Eveline 2001;Orloff 1996). ...
In Western welfare states women’s citizenship rights are increasingly conferred on the basis of labor force participation rather than maternalism. This article examines the policy positions and discourse associated with paid parental leave of successive Australian governments from 1996 to 2017 to examine the extent to which this has occurred in the Australian context. It reveals a slow movement away from maternalism that has been constrained by path dependencies associated with the male breadwinner model and is shaped by philosophies of liberalism and small government.
... Based on this idea, scholars have employed the so-called difference-in-differences (DID) method. DID method, as one of the quasi-experimental approaches, is superior to a simple time-series analysis as it allows a valid comparison to be made between the two cases where one is affected by a certain change while the other is not (Waldfogel, 1999). Therefore, DID method has become extensively implemented as a way of estimating the effects of government policies (Brewer, Crossley, & Joyce, 2017). ...
While short-term rentals such as Airbnb have experienced very rapid growth in recent years, many local governments have been introducing intensive limits, restricting its operations. For example, in 2016, New York State prohibited listing an advertisement for illegal short-term rentals, which has raised an interesting of question whether the regulation affected the performance of the hotel industry or not. This paper, therefore, aims to examine the impact of the short-term rental regulation on hotel performance in an affected state. This study conducted a difference-in-differences technique in comparing the performance of hotels in New York and Washington D.C. Results show that the regulation had a positive ripple effect on the performance of lower-scale hotels.
... Time out of the labour force may also have an impact on women's careers even if the spell out of employment is brief. Previous studies for the US and UK have shown that the pay gap is larger for women who do not return to their previous job because they do not have access to maternity leave (Waldfogel, 1998;1999). Similarly, studies have shown that mothers of young children have little career mobility. ...
The results highlight how gendered employment patterns are following childbirth, with men typically remaining in full-time work (or moving into it) and women withdrawing from full-time work. Those women who return to employment typically see their chance of moving up the occupational ladder decrease. A limitation of this study is that we have only be able to examine trajectories three- to five-years after birth. The evidence, however, shows that the pay gap widens as women age and the results presented here hint at some reasons for this (ONS, 2018). First, we show large divergences in men and women’s employment trajectories in the years following childbirth, with men moving towards full-time work and women increasingly withdrawing from it (by either moving into part-time work or exiting the labour market). Second, the risk of occupational up or downgrading over three years is the same for women who return to work either full or part-time. However, those that return to work following a break are more likely to occupationally downgrade. Finally, even when women return to the same job, we show that they are far less likely than their male counterparts to progress at work. These factors together suggest that the patterns observed in the five years after birth are unlikely to be reversed as children grow older.
... Research shows that women who live in states that have some kind of paid leave program are twice as likely to take paid leave following the birth of a child as are women in states without these policies [7,8]. Other scholarship has supported this connection between legislative action and leave-taking behavior; Waldfogel [9], for instance, found that leave usage increased after the implementation of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. ...
... Due to eligibility requirements, such as tenure at the company, full-time status, and company size (50 employees or more), and FMLA covers only about 46.9% of all private-sector workers (Waldfogel, 2001). Waldfogel (1999) found that women are less likely to be covered by the employer policies in FMLA than men, and that the picture is worse for low-income women. Similarly Lahaie, Earle, and Heymann (2013) found that being less educated, low-wage-earning, and female are less likely to be able to afford to take advantage of supportive resources, paid sick leaves, and FMLA. ...
Many caregivers of individuals who are frail and elderly face financial hardships that have negative consequences that compound over time. This article explores the causes of these hardships, reviews Medicaid home and community-based interventions, and related government financial supports that have been used to alleviate them and concludes with recommendations for social work practice and social policy.
... Gruber concludes that employers' costs of providing the benefits are largely passed through to the targeted group's wages, implying that young women fully value the benefits. 4 In another study on mandated benefits in the United States, 9 Waldfogel (1999) finds that the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act has a mildly positive employment effect and a negligible wage effect for women. Waldfogel attributes the lack of a wage effect to the relatively low cost imposed on employers, a result of the leave's short duration and zero compensation rate. ...
... Research shows that women who live in states that have some kind of paid leave program are twice as likely to take paid leave following the birth of a child as are women in states without these policies [7,8]. Other scholarship has supported this connection between legislative action and leave-taking behavior; Waldfogel [9], for instance, found that leave usage increased after the implementation of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. ...
... Second, mothers might have 10 Except in Quebec due to the introduction of the Quebec's Family Policy (with highly subsidized child care) around the same time period. 11 For the US, Waldfogel (1999) demonstrates that the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) did not have a significant effect on the employment of mothers with a child less than 1-year-old. different responses to the reform in terms of how they use their maternity leave period. ...
Using a parental leave reform implemented in Canada at the end of 2000, I study the effects of an increase in maternal care on the developmental outcomes of children aged 2–3 years old. The reform increased the time mothers spent with their newborns by 3 months. Using the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, I employ a difference-in-differences methodology, where I compare children with a sibling born after the reform to those with a sibling born before the reform, relative to children of the same birth cohorts with no siblings born in the period surrounding the reform. Results show that treated children enjoy an increase of 3.6 h per week in the time they spend with their mothers, mainly due to a decrease in the time spent in non-institutional care. The increase in maternal care improves the emotional disorder score in the short-run and has no other impact on cognitive, non-cognitive or health outcomes in the short-run or the medium-run. Studying heterogeneous effects reveals a differential impact by child's age. An increase of 6.5 h per week in the time 2-year-olds spend with their mothers significantly improves their non-cognitive skills.
... Estimates suggest that workers have taken 100 million FMLA leaves and that about 18 million workers a year use family and medical leave. Multiple studies have documented increased availability and use of leaves as a result of FMLA (U.S. DOL 1996;Waldfogel 1999;Cantor et al. 2001;Han and Waldfogel 2003). Klerman, Daley, and Pozniak (2013) report that, based on 2012 surveys of worksites and employees, employee use of leave and employer granting and administration of leave are routinized and unburdensome. ...
As a result of its size, history, immigration flows, and institutional complexity at the city, county, state, and national levels, the United States is characterized by disparate yet coexisting systems of political economy and labor policy. Some of the northeastern, midwestern, and western states have at times had a kind of "laborist capitalism" in which public policy and prominent employers acknowledged union power and legitimacy. In the South, things are different: Mississippi and South Carolina are among the states least hospitable to unionism. In such states, local business interests have preserved low taxes, lax regulations, and low wages. The authors of Disunited States of America describe several dimensions of labor policy differentiation across the states as well as examine the underlying dynamics.
... For the OECD countries providing leave to mothers, the range of percentage of wages paid ranges from 29 to 100%, with 47% of the members providing 100%. In contrast, the U.S. maternity leave policy provided under the Family Leave and Medical Act (FMLA) of 1993 is not universal, applying, for example, only to employers with more than 50 employees (Waldfogel 1999). Nearly half of the workforce is not covered by the act, women are less likely than men to be covered, and single mothers and mothers of low socio-economic status (SES) are even less likely to be covered than married or middleclass mothers (Kamerman 2000). ...
Maternity leave policies are linked to early childhood education and care policies, and in many countries, the length of leave policies determines the need for early care programs. The length of maternity leave varies greatly among mothers in the U.S. because of the absence of a universal policy for paid leave. This study examined associations among length of maternity leave, mother–child interactions, and attachment among American working mothers and their infants. This study consisted of secondary data analysis, and the participants were drawn from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n ≈ 3850). Controlling for SES, the findings of path analysis suggest that the length of maternity leave was directly linked to the quality of mother–child interactions and indirectly linked to attachment security. These results have implications for the development of family policies that support the needs of infants and mothers during the first months of life.
... They suggest that this may be due to the higher cost of hiring young women after paid family leave is introduced, while at the same time employment becomes more attractive to this group. No such effect is found by Waldfogel (1999) for the (unpaid) FMLA, which provides unpaid leave of 12 weeks to a broad group of women. That is, although leave coverage and use increased after the FMLA was introduced, it did not negatively affect women's employment or wages. ...
This review is based on the international and Australian literature on paid parental leave. It does not aim to be exhaustive but focuses on the impact paid parental leave has on the labour force participation of mothers in developed countries. Four aspects of paid parental leave are explored, including the impacts of: introducing paid parental leave; changing the duration of existing paid parental leave; changing the generosity of existing paid parental leave payments; and paid paternity leave. It interprets the implications in the context of Australia, and includes descriptive information on the recent and current situation in Australia.
... Thus, the effect of parental leaves on the gender wage gap is theoretically ambiguous. Empirical evidence for the United States suggests that the effect of the FMLA has been modest; it has been found to have a small positive effect on employment and no effect on wages (Baum 2003 andWaldfogel 1999). Results are broadly similar for California's introduction of six weeks of paid leave (with a replacement ratio of 55 percent) in 2004. ...
Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) microdata over the 1980-2010 period, we provide new empirical evidence on the extent of and trends in the gender wage gap, which declined considerably during this time. By 2010, conventional human capital variables taken together explained little of the gender wage gap, while gender differences in occupation and industry continued to be important. Moreover, the gender pay gap declined much more slowly at the top of the wage distribution than at the middle or bottom and by 2010 was noticeably higher at the top. We then survey the literature to identify what has been learned about the explanations for the gap. We conclude that many of the traditional explanations continue to have salience. Although human- capital factors are now relatively unimportant in the aggregate, women's work force interruptions and shorter hours remain significant in high-skilled occupations, possibly due to compensating differentials. Gender differences in occupations and industries, as well as differences in gender roles and the gender division of labor remain important, and research based on experimental evidence strongly suggests that discrimination cannot be discounted. Psychological attributes or noncognitive skills comprise one of the newer explanations for gender differences in outcomes. Our effort to assess the quantitative evidence on the importance of these factors suggests that they account for a small to moderate portion of the gender pay gap, considerably smaller than, say, occupation and industry effects, though they appear to modestly contribute to these differences.
... During the inquiry, trade unions (see, for example, Australian Nursing Federation 2008, 7) and women's groups (see, for example, Women's Electoral Lobby 2008, 1) drew on the argument that paid parental leave would enhance national productivity by increasing female labour force participation rates. Studies from Joesch (1995), Macran, Joshi, and Dex (1996), Waldfogel (1999) and Waldfogel, Higuchi, and Abe (1999) and have found a positive correlation between access to paid parental leave and women maintaining their connection to the labour market. Additionally, Sharryn Jackson (ALP federal Member of Parliament 2007-2010) (2013, personal communication February 7) said that lifting the labour force participation rate was the aspect of the policy that resonated most strongly with the Productivity Commission itself, as the aging workforce had created shortages in labour supply. ...
The Howard Government’s commitment to supporting the male breadwinner policy model was a major barrier to the efforts of female political leaders to influence the development of a national paid parental leave scheme. Associated with this model was the argument that paid parental leave ‘discriminated’ against non-working women and devalued their contribution to society as mothers. Despite a change of government in 2007 this argument remained influential through the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Paid Maternity, Paternity and Parental Leave (2009). Key to the eventual legislation of the scheme in 2010 was female leaders’ strategy of aligning with, rather than disrupting, this narrative. As such, women in trade unions, political parties, women’s groups and the bureaucracy framed paid parental leave as supporting women in their maternal roles as it allowed them the financial breathing room to stay at home for longer with their newborn.
... But as FMLA does not include any payment, workers who are eligible for the leave often do not take it (Commission on Family and Medical Leave, 1996 66 ; Waldfogel, 2001 67 ; Cantor et al., 2001 68 ). Thus though the law provides de facto Parental leave entitlements, studies have found that it has had generally small effects on leave usage by new mothers (Ross, 1998 69 ; Waldfogel, 1999 70 ; Han and Waldfogel, 2003 71 ; Han et al., 2009 72 ) and little or no effects on leave usage by new fathers (Han and Waldfogel, 2003; Han et al., 2009). The fact that the law extended coverage but had so little impact on usage suggests that there are limits to the extent to which families are willing and able to use unpaid leave. ...
... The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993, the first and only national mandate, guarantees qualified workers at eligible firms up to 12 weeks of unpaid job-protected leave per year for medical reasons including the birth of a child. 1 The Department of Labor estimates that in 2012, 59 percent of US workers were both covered and eligible, and that 16 percent of those workers took an FMLA leave (Klerman, Daley, and Pozniak 2012). However, studies of FMLA find that the law has had little if any impact on women's labor-force attachment (Waldfogel 1999, Baum 2003, Han, Ruhm, and Waldfogel 2009. ...
I analyze the effects of short-duration paid parental leave on maternal labor supply. Using monthly longitudinal data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, my event-study research design estimates impacts of paid leave laws in California and New Jersey on women's labor-force outcomes around childbirth. I find that paid leave laws are associated with a substantial increase in labor-force attachment in the months directly around birth. While US-style short-duration leave is unlikely to change prolonged exits from the labor force, my findings imply that paid leave laws induce some women stay more attached to jobs, particularly low-skill women.
... In reality, little evidence shows that the FMLA has had a major impact on workers' lives (Waldfogel 1999). A congressionally appointed commission found that a small percentage of working women and practically no working men availed themselves of unpaid leave for family or medical emergencies. ...
The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was intended to help employees meet short-term family demands, such as caring for children and elderly parents, without losing their jobs. However, recent evidence suggests that few women and even fewer men employees avail themselves of family leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. This paper examines the organizational, worker status, and salience/need factors associated with knowledge of family leave benefits. We study employees covered by the FMLA using the 1996 panel of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to ascertain what work and family factors influence knowledge of leave benefits. Overall, 91 percent of employed FMLA-eligible women report they have access to unpaid family leave, compared to 72 percent of men. Logistic regression analyses demonstrate that work situations more than family situations affect knowledge of family leave benefits and that gender shapes the impact of some work and family factors on awareness. Furthermore, work and family situations do not explain away the considerable gender difference in knowledge of family leave.
... In addition to the supportive climate towards family, Norway is also characterized by low income inequality and comprehensive social insurance (e.g. universal benefits) (Arts & Gelissen 2002;Esping-Andersen 1990, 1999Korpi 2000). ...
As a result of declining fertility levels in Europe in the late twentieth century, an increasing share of European governments consider the level of fertility in their country too low. At the macro level, the trend of fertility decline has contributed substantially to the acceleration of population ageing which has become a key challenge to European welfare states. In addition, having children for many people is an individual life aspiration and is therefore associated with an important aspect of individual well-being. This book investigates socio-economic differentials in European fertility with particular attention to education, economic context and social policy. The analyses show that the relation between education and fertility varies considerably across countries. This context-contingency of the education-fertility nexus is consistent with contemporary socio-demographic research that increasingly highlights the importance of contextual effects on individual demographic behaviour. Besides an educational expansion, Europe also has also witnessed severe economic downturns and the development of a wide range of family policies during the second half of the 20th century. This book finds pro-cyclical fertility patterns and positive effects of family policies on childbearing. However, the impact of economic conditions and social policy seems to vary considerably between educational groups. This book is of interest to family sociologists, social demographers and anyone interested in the link between micro-level social behaviour and contextual factors.
As women's labor force participation has risen around the globe, scholarly and policy discourse on the ramifications of this employment growth has intensified. This book explores the links between maternal employment and child health using an international perspective that is grounded in economic theory and rigorous empirical methods. Women's labor-market activity affects child health largely because their paid work raises household income, which strengthens families' abilities to finance healthcare needs and nutritious food; however, time away from children could counteract some of the benefits of higher socioeconomic status that spring from maternal employment. New evidence based on data from nine South and Southeast Asian countries illuminates the potential tradeoff between the benefits and challenges families contend with in the face of women's labor-market activity. This book provides new, original evidence on links between maternal employment and children's health using data associated with three indicators of children's nutritional status: birth size, stunting, and wasting. Results support the implementation and enforcement of policy interventions that bolster women's advancement in the labor market and reduce undernutrition among children. Scholars, students, policymakers and all those with an interest in nutritional science, gender, economics of the family, or development economies will find the methodology and original results expounded here both useful and informative.
Context:
The New York Paid Family Leave (NYPFL) law was passed in April 2016 and took effect January 1, 2018. Expanding paid family leave (PFL) coverage has been proposed as a public health strategy to improve population health and reduce disparities.
Objective:
To describe first-year enrollment in NYPFL and to evaluate utilization of NYPFL benefits.
Design:
Observational study.
Setting:
New York State.
Participants:
Employees enrolled in the NYPFL program (N = 8 528 580).
Methods:
We merged NYPFL enrollment and claim data sets for 2018. Descriptive analysis and multiple logistic regression models were used to assess utilization by demographic variables and business size.
Main outcome measures:
Utilization and duration of NYPFL to bond with a newborn or care for a family member differed by employees' age, sex, race/ethnicity, residence, income, and business size.
Results:
Approximately 90% of working New Yorkers (N = 8 528 580) were enrolled in NYPFL. First-year utilization of PFL for newborn bonding and family care (9.4 and 4.0 per 1000 employees, respectively) was higher than comparable state PFL programs in California, New Jersey, or Rhode Island. An estimated 38.5% of employed women in New York utilized PFL for newborn bonding. Employees who worked at small businesses (1-49 employees) had lower utilization of PFL. Employees with lower incomes were more likely to claim PFL and employees of color or with lower incomes were more likely to take the maximum 8 weeks of PFL.
Conclusions:
These findings suggest that state PFL programs increase equity in employment benefits. Wider adoption of state/federal PFL programs could help reduce health disparities and improve maternal and infant health outcomes.
We evaluate the causes of the wage gap at the intersection of race, ethnicity and gender over time in the United States. We analyse the wage gaps for women of colour along three dimensions: relative to White women, relative to men of their respective race/ethnicity, and relative to White men. Using the American Community Survey, we replicate earlier findings based on the Current Population Survey data which show that, on average, Black women face an unexplained wage gap relative to White men that goes beyond the simple addition of the separate unexplained gender and racial wage gaps. This can be seen persistently between 1980 and 2019, and we find it is true across the entire wage distribution but especially notable at higher centiles. From 1990 through 2019, Black and Hispanic women saw stalled progress, while White women continued to make steady progress closing the wage gap relative to White men.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, 12 states and the District of Columbia passed maternity leave legislation (MLL) allowing mothers a period of leave from work after childbirth. In 1993, President Clinton signed the first piece of federal MLL, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Similar to state legislation, the FMLA guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid leave for eligible mothers. I evaluate the effect of MLL on the incidence of leave taking, the probability that mothers will eventually return to work at their prechildbirth jobs, and the timing of their return. The results indicate that the legislation increases the number of mothers who eventually return to their prechildbirth jobs but that MLL does not have a statistically significant effect on the incidence of leave taking. The results also indicate that MLL allows mothers to delay their return to work at their prechildbirth jobs.
Although paid family leave (PFL) has the potential to improve labor market and other outcomes for mothers, there is also concern that PFL might also lead to discrimination against women of childbearing age. We examine the impact of California's paid family leave law (CA‐PFL) on labor market outcomes over time during the post‐law decade, as well as the law's effect for groups with differing levels of education. Results indicate that the law had negligible impacts on young women's labor force participation, unemployment duration, and earnings, but persistent small negative impacts on their relative employment. The negative employment impacts are concentrated among college‐educated women, for whom the law is associated with a 2–3 percentage point decrease in labor force participation and a 1–2 percentage point decline in employment. The CA‐PFL does not appear to have impacted the relative labor force participation, employment, unemployment duration, or earnings of less‐educated young females.
In the United States many women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) leave their careers after becoming a parent. Attrition is simultaneously occurring with workforce shortages in STEM with two million jobs potentially unfilled by 2025. While there has been an increase in STEM recruitment of women over recent decades, policies aimed at decreasing departure of women in STEM have not been prioritized. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) guarantees workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave, but has not shown to increase workforce attachment of new mothers. Instead, studies suggest that short durations of paid leave (6-12 weeks) increase workforce attachment. Medical consensus suggests that a leave of 26 weeks is necessary for maternal health and a leave of 40 weeks is optimal for infant well-being. Coupled with recently introduced paid parental leave legislation in Congress, we recommend timely action to decrease the departure of women from the workforce and to strengthen gender equality in STEM. We recommend instituting 12 weeks of federal paid family leave (PFL) under the recently introduced national family leave insurance program in the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY Act; S. 463/H.R. 1185).
This paper discusses how childcare and parental leave policies affect female employment by reviewing the international evidence and recent papers on Japan. These papers estimate causal effects of policies by exploiting policy changes, which is a more credible identification strategy than those applied in earlier observational studies. The literature on parental leave finds that a more generous leave package tends to delay mothers’ return to work, but it does not have detrimental effects on maternal labour supply in the medium to long run. Some papers also find that provision of job protection for around 1 year can increase maternal employment, but longer job protection has little additional effects. The literature on childcare policies finds that maternal employment does not necessarily increase, because the expansion of childcare may crowd out informal childcare arrangements, such as care provided by grandparents. Findings by recent papers on Japan are largely consistent with the international evidence.
It is well established within the scholarship on work and the family that many women experience difficulty juggling work and family responsibilities. Challenges to breastfeeding after giving birth are a specific manifestation of this work–family conflict. Many women report that they are unable to continue breastfeeding upon return to paid work. In this article, I analyze a subsample of 746 women from the United States Infant Feeding Practices Survey II to assess the effect of new mothers’ employment status and workplace characteristics on breastfeeding duration. This research reveals that new mothers who return to paid employment within three months of giving birth breastfeed an average of five fewer weeks than new mothers who do not return to paid work for three months or more. In addition, among mothers who return to paid work within three months, full-time workers breastfeed an average of more than 15 fewer weeks than part-time workers. These substantial differences in the duration of breastfeeding suggest that women face significant obstacles to combining paid work and mothering in the postpartum period.
This chapter examines whether parenthood is causally related to an individual’s health, specifically for the workers in the USA. Although society values employment and parenthood individually, there is widespread public concern that a combination of the two may be too much of a good thing, especially in the case of mothers of young children. Against this background, this chapter outlines a sociological framework for analyzing the health impact of parenthood. The hypothesis that children have a detrimental impact on employees’ health is derived. The exceedingly modest public and private policies for supporting working parents in the USA are described briefly and it is argued that neither are likely to mitigate the theoretical relationship. Some quantitative research has indeed shown a negative impact of parenthood. However, many studies have found no relationship or even positive impacts. Possible reasons for these apparent contradictions are discussed. Despite the unclear state of research, the following three clear recommendations are made. First, occupational health management should, for now, desist from introducing specific health promotion for employees with children. Second, public policy should expand existing measures to support working parents. Third, more rigorous research that utilizes more appropriate methods for causal analysis than have been implemented previously is needed in this field.
This paper investigates the role of unpaid maternity leave in providing household insurance against paternal employment shocks. The main outcome is the timing of a mothers' return to work after having a child. Exploiting the US Family and Medical Leave Act, we find that mothers eligible for maternity leave speed up their return to work in response to a paternal shock, with the conditional probability of being in work 49% higher than in households with no unpaid maternity leave. Further evidence is provided on the insurance role of unpaid maternity leave through i) no significant interaction between paid maternity leave and the paternal shock and ii) smoothing of consumption effects of the shock for households covered by unpaid leave.
This study investigates the economic consequences of rights to paid parental leave in nine European countries over the 1969
through 1993 period. Since women use virtually all parental leave in most nations, men constitute a reasonable comparison
group, and most of the analysis examines how changes in paid leave affect the gap between female and male labor market outcomes.
The employment-to-populations ratios of women in their prime childbearing years are also compared with those of corresponding
aged men and older females. Parental leave is associated with increases in women's employment, but with reductions in their
relative wages at extended durations.
This article summarizes the provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act, its possible effects on labor markets, and the resulting changes in the ability of workers to take leave. The author concludes that the actual provisions of the act are quite modest and have yielded neither large benefits to workers nor imposed significant costs on employers. One reason for this is that few workers gained significant new rights to time off work because the legislation contains many exemptions and employees often had other mechanisms for obtaining leave prior to its enactment. Copyright 1997 by American Economic Association.
The chapters of this book are arranged according to a perceived relationship between two concerns: that parents need time with their new-born infants to establish patterns of trust and integrate family relationships; and that the quality of day care infants receive contributes both to their own development as well as to that of the total family system. These two foci are interrelated, because time for parent-infant interaction in the early months helps prepare the infant for the upcoming daily separations and reunions; and also because day care can play a role in supporting the family. Further, leaves for parenting can help families achieve an adequate quality of life, measured not only in economic terms, but also in familial satisfaction. The seven sections of the book address the parent-child relationship, with each section focused on one particular aspect of what working parents face in the first year of their child's life.
In part I, two such aspects are examined: the need that exists today for an established national infant-care-leave policy, and the conditions of the past that have led to the formulation of leave policies for mothers who work.
Because so many infants are currently being placed into day care at very young ages, part II examines to what extent the infant's needs are being met.
What a family needs to get off to a good start, and how parents feel about the growing conflict between their work and parenting roles, provides the basis for part III.
Part IV involves a consideration of existing support for leave by both business and government.
In looking at the leave policies of other countries, part V provides a background of experience against which to measure U.S. efforts to formulate such a natural policy.
As the United States attempts to formulate its own national infant-care-leave policy, it faces legal, financial, and political challenges, and these issues are examined in part VI.
Finally, part VII looks to the future. Chapter 21 presents the recommendations of the Bush Center Advisory Committee on Infant Care Leave. The conclusion, by Zigler and Frank, reviews those factors which any policy formulation and implementation must take into consideration: the increasing need for out-of-home care for young infants; how such a policy will work in actuality; who is responsible for cost; and what, ideally, we can expect from an enlightened and sound infant-care-leave policy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In the United States and Britain, there is a 'family gap' between the wages of mothers and other women. Differential returns to marital and parental status explain 40-50 percent of the gender gap. Another 30-40 percent is explained by women's lower levels of work experience and lower returns to experience. Taking advantage of 'quasi experiments' in job-protected maternity leave in the United States and Britain, this article finds that women who had leave coverage and returned to work after childbirth received a wage premium that offset the negative wage effects of children. Copyright 1998 by University of Chicago Press.
I consider the labor-market effects of mandates which raise the costs of employing a demographically identifiable group. The efficiency of these policies will be largely dependent on the extent to which their costs are shifted to group-specific wages. I study several state and federal mandates which stipulated that childbirth be covered comprehensively in health insurance plans, raising the relative cost of insuring women of childbearing age. I find substantial shifting of the costs of these mandates to the wages of the targeted group. Correspondingly, I find little effect on total labor input for that group.
In the U.S. during the period between 1960-1964, 52.2% of all single 15-34 year old women who were carrying their 1st child married before delivery whereas only 26.6% did in the period between 1985-1989. During 1960-1964, 30.75% of all black women who had conceived their 1st child before marriage married before the child was delivered, but by 1985-1989, this percentage fell to 8%. The corresponding percentages for white women were 61-34%. In 1985-1989, 23% of all Hispanic women who premaritally conceived their 1st child married before the child was born. The greatest rise in fertility in the 1980s occurred among women in their 30s. For example, between 1980-1990, it climbed from 60-80. 4 births/1000 women for women 30-34 years old. It rose from 26.9-37.3 for 35-39 year old women. Further 53.1% of 18-44 year old mothers with infants were working in the period in June 1990 while only 38% were working in June 1980. The overall fertility rate for all 15-44 year old women in June 1990 stood at 67. Hispanic women had significantly higher fertility rate (93.2) than non-Hispanic women 65.2, and Asian or Pacific Islander women 58.1. Even though more women married 1 time during their life, most experience their 1st birth before or during their 1st marriage (28.5 and 64.3 respectively). In June 1990, for all women between 18-34 years old, the lifetime expected births was 2273/1000 women. Based on the results of the 1990 census, the US Census Bureau concluded that a considerable fall in the preference of unmarried couples to marry before the birth of a child just to refrain from having an out of wedlock birth contributed to the increase in premarital births in the U.S.
"Since 1979 German federal maternity leave and benefit policy has given women incentives to stay at home and take care of their newborn and youngest children. In 1986 this leave and benefit policy was changed in several ways, turning it into a powerful instrument for delaying mothers' return to work after childbirth.... We estimate post childbirth return to work hazards for women during the federally protected leave protection period and immediately upon completion of this leave period. During the leave mothers are less likely to return to work the longer is the time left in the leave protection period; however, this result cannot be attributed generally to high levels of maternity benefits. When the leave protection period ends, mothers with strong labor force attachment who are still on leave return to their jobs."
I study a budget-constrained, private-valuation, sealed-bid sequential auction with two incompletely-informed, risk-neutral bidders in which the valuations and income may be non-monotonic functions of a bidder's type. Multiple equilibrium symmetric bidding functions may exist that differ in allocation, efficiency and revenue. The sequence of sale affects the competition for a good and therefore also affects revenue and the prices of each good in a systematic way that depends on the relationship among the valuations and incomes of bidders. The sequence of sale may affect prices and revenue even when the number of bidders is large relative to the number of goods. If a particular good, say [alpha], is allocated to a strong bidder independent of the sequence of sale, then auction revenue and the price of good [alpha] are higher when good [alpha] is sold first.
As the gender gap in pay between women and men has been narrowing, the 'family gap' in pay between mothers and nonmothers has been widening. One reason may be the institutional structure in the United States, which has emphasized equal pay and opportunity policies but not family policies, in contrast to other countries that have implemented both. The authors now have evidence on the links between one such family policy and women's pay. Recent research suggests that maternity leave coverage, by raising women's retention after childbirth, also raises women's levels of work experience, job tenure, and pay. Copyright 1998 by American Economic Association.