IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwrup/102en.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Parental Leave Policies and Child Development: A Review of Empirical Findings

Author

Listed:
  • Mathias Huebener

Abstract

Parental leave policies are a major policy tool used across OECD countries to support families before and after child birth. There are large differences across countries in the amount and the duration of benefit payments as well as leave entitlement periods. Despite these differences, the shared goal of parental leave policies is to reconcile family life and work, and support child development. While much research attention has been paid to the effects of parental leave policies on maternal labor supply, much less is known about their effects on child development and health. This DIW Roundup summarizes the international literature on parental leave policies and their impact on child outcomes. The literature suggests that the effects are small. However, research in this area is still relatively new and it is too early to draw conclusions about how the design of parental leave policies impacts on child development.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathias Huebener, 2016. "Parental Leave Policies and Child Development: A Review of Empirical Findings," DIW Roundup: Politik im Fokus 102, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwrup:102en
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.546232.de/DIW_Roundup_102_en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2000. "Parental leave and child health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 931-960, November.
    2. Gordon B. Dahl & Katrine V. Løken & Magne Mogstad & Kari Vea Salvanes, 2016. "What Is the Case for Paid Maternity Leave?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(4), pages 655-670, October.
    3. Sakiko Tanaka, 2005. "Parental leave and child health across OECD countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(501), pages 7-28, February.
    4. Ekberg, John & Eriksson, Rickard & Friebel, Guido, 2013. "Parental leave — A policy evaluation of the Swedish “Daddy-Month” reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 131-143.
    5. Rossin, Maya, 2011. "The effects of maternity leave on children's birth and infant health outcomes in the United States," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 221-239, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bicakova, Alena & Kaliskova, Klara, 2022. "Is Longer Maternal Care Always Beneficial? The Impact of a Four-Year Paid Parental Leave," IZA Discussion Papers 15640, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Huebener, Mathias & Kuehnle, Daniel & Spiess, C. Katharina, 2019. "Parental leave policies and socio-economic gaps in child development: Evidence from a substantial benefit reform using administrative data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    3. Mathias Huebener & Daniel Kuehnle & C. Katharina Spiess, 2017. "Paid Parental Leave and Child Development: Evidence from the 2007 German Parental Benefit Reform and Administrative Data," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1651, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maya Rossin-Slater, 2017. "Maternity and Family Leave Policy," NBER Working Papers 23069, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Rossin-Slater, Maya, 2017. "Maternity and Family Leave Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 10500, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Aline Bütikofer & Julie Riise & Meghan M. Skira, 2021. "The Impact of Paid Maternity Leave on Maternal Health," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 67-105, February.
    4. Chuard, Caroline, 2020. "Womb at work: The missing impact of maternal employment on newborn health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    5. Huebener, Mathias & Kuehnle, Daniel & Spiess, C. Katharina, 2019. "Parental leave policies and socio-economic gaps in child development: Evidence from a substantial benefit reform using administrative data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    6. Avendano, Mauricio & Berkman, Lisa F. & Brugiavini, Agar & Pasini, Giacomo, 2015. "The long-run effect of maternity leave benefits on mental health: Evidence from European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 45-53.
    7. Feng Chen, 2023. "Does paid family leave save infant lives? Evidence from California's paid family leave program," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(2), pages 319-337, April.
    8. Regmi, Krishna & Wang, Le, 2022. "Maternity Leave," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1184, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. Bassford, Micaela & Fisher, Hayley, 2016. "Bonus babies? The impact of paid parental leave on fertility intentions," Working Papers 2016-04, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    10. Chuard, Caroline, 2023. "Negative effects of long parental leave on maternal health: Evidence from a substantial policy change in Austria," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Rodgers, Luke P., 2020. "The impact of paid family leave on household savings," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    12. Lebihan, Laetitia & Mao Takongmo, Charles Olivier, 2023. "The effect of paid parental leave on breastfeeding, parental health and behavior," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    13. Kien Le & My Nguyen, 2022. "The long-run impacts of paid maternity leave on height and educational attainment," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, December.
    14. Hope Corman & Dhaval Dave & Nancy E. Reichman, 2018. "Evolution of the Infant Health Production Function," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 6-47, July.
    15. Gordon B. Dahl & Katrine V. Løken & Magne Mogstad & Kari Vea Salvanes, 2016. "What Is the Case for Paid Maternity Leave?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(4), pages 655-670, October.
    16. Esther Yin-Nei Cho, 2017. "Child Benefit Portfolios Across OECD Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 1099-1115, July.
    17. Lauber, Verena & Thomas, Lampert, 2014. "The Effect of Early Universal Daycare on Child Weight Problems," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100399, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Natalia Danzer & Victor Lavy, 2018. "Paid Parental Leave and Children's Schooling Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 81-117, February.
    19. Broadway, Barbara & Kalb, Guyonne & Kühnle, Daniel & Maeder, Miriam, 2015. "The Effect of Paid Parental Leave on Child Health in Australia," IZA Discussion Papers 8978, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Khanam, Rasheda & Nghiem, Son & Connelly, Luke, 2016. "The effects of parental leave on child health and postnatal care: Evidence from Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 17-29.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwrup:102en. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.