How Does Job‐Protected Maternity Leave Affect Mothers’ Employment?
- 1 October 2008
- journal article
- Published by University of Chicago Press in Journal of Labor Economics
- Vol. 26 (4), 655-691
- https://doi.org/10.1086/591955
Abstract
We examine the impact of maternity leaves on the period mothers are away from work postbirth and the likelihood they return to their prebirth employer. We use the introduction and expansion of statutory job-protected maternity leave entitlements in Canada to identify these effects. We find that modest leave entitlements of 17-18 weeks do not change the amount of time mothers spend away from work. In contrast, longer leaves do have a substantive impact on behavior, leading to more time spent at home. We also find that all entitlements we examined increase job continuity with the prebirth employer. (c) 2008 by The University of Chicago.Keywords
This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
- Maternal employment, breastfeeding, and health: Evidence from maternity leave mandatesJournal of Health Economics, 2008
- Generalized least squares inference in panel and multilevel models with serial correlation and fixed effectsJournal of Econometrics, 2007
- How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2004
- The Effects of Maternity Leave Legislation on Mothers' Labor Supply after ChildbirthSouthern Economic Journal, 2003
- In and out of the labour market: long‐term income consequences of child‐related interruptions to women's paid workCanadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, 2001
- Maternity and Parental Benefits in Canada: Are There Behavioural Implications?Canadian Public Policy, 2000
- The Family Gap for Young Women in the United States and Britain: Can Maternity Leave Make a Difference?Journal of Labor Economics, 1998
- The Economic Consequences of Parental Leave Mandates: Lessons from EuropeThe Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1998
- Understanding the ‘Family Gap’ in Pay for Women with ChildrenJournal of Economic Perspectives, 1998
- The Work-Employment Distinction among New MothersThe Journal of Human Resources, 1994