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The weeks following birth are critical for a mother and her infant, setting the stages for long-term health and well-being. Paid Family Leave (PFL) provides millions of workers paid time off to bond with a new child. However, access to PFL has become alarmingly unequal over the past two decades. Mothers from high-socioeconomic backgrounds are much more likely to have access to and benefit from PFL than their low-socioeconomic counterparts. The increasing unequal access to PFL among mothers sparks my research question on the spillover effects on infants: does paid family leave widen infant health disparity? This paper analyzes the impact of paid family leave (PFL) policies in New Jersey on outcomes of infant health disparity—disparity in birth outcomes of infants born to mothers from different socioeconomic backgrounds. I use data from 2006-2011 restricted-use version of the natality data from the National Vital Statistics System(NVSS), which provides county and state of residence, detailed infant health, and maternal demographic characteristics. I use race and the degree of education as crude measures of maternal socioeconomic backgrounds. I employ event study and difference-in-difference models to compare the differences in birth outcomes between New Jersey and Pennsylvania before and after the implementation of NJ-PFL. My results indicate that access to PFL significantly impacts gestational age and preterm deliveries among mothers from all race groups, which appears to be mainly driven by the changes in outcomes of infants born to non-Hispanic White mothers. Specifically, preterm deliveries decrease by 0.49 percentage points (4.7 percent at the sample mean) among births to non-Hispanic White mothers following the adoption of the NJ-PFL relative to PA. In contrast, I did not find consistent improvement among non-Hispanic Black mothers. I also find a small but statistically significant enhancement in gestation age among infants born to non-Hispanic White mothers but not among non-Hispanic Black mothers. These results imply that NJ-PFL had varying impacts on mothers of different races, with only non-Hispanic White mothers benefiting from the policy. Taken together, this project provides evidence that PFL might widen infant health disparity.
Presenter(s)
Xueshi Wang, Michigan State University
Does Paid Family Leave Widen Infant Health Disparity?
Category
Organized Session Abstract Submission
Description
Session: [059] RESPONSES TO ECONOMIC SHOCKS, POLICIES, AND PREFERENCES
Date: 7/2/2023
Time: 4:30 PM to 6:15 PM
Date: 7/2/2023
Time: 4:30 PM to 6:15 PM