The effects of maternity leave on children's birth and infant health outcomes in the United States

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impacts of unpaid maternity leave provisions of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) on children's birth and infant health outcomes in the United States. My identification strategy uses variation in pre-FMLA maternity leave policies across states and variation in which firms are covered by FMLA provisions. Using Vital Statistics data and difference-in-difference-in-difference methodology, I find that maternity leave led to small increases in birth weight, decreases in the likelihood of a premature birth, and substantial decreases in infant mortality for children of college-educated and married mothers, who were most able to take advantage of unpaid leave. My results are robust to the inclusion of numerous controls for maternal, child, and county characteristics, state, year, and month fixed effects, and state-year interactions, as well as across several different specifications.

Appendix Figure 1

Comparing Weighted Average Total Employment with Total Employment Notes: This figure plots the total employment in each county and year calculated using the formula in the text in Section 1.4 versus the actual total employment in the data.

Figure 1

The Effects of FMLA by Year Notes: These figures plot the yearly DDD coefficients on the interaction between an indicator for a birth in a treatment state, an indicator for a birth in a likely-eligible county-year, and an indicator for the year on the x-axis. I include all the controls, fixed effects, and state-year interactions listed in equation (2) in the regressions used to estimate these coefficients.