IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16238.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Maternity Benefits and Marital Stability after Birth: Evidence from the Soviet Baltic Republics

Author

Listed:
  • Brainerd, Elizabeth

    (Brandeis University)

  • Malkova, Olga

    (University of Kentucky)

Abstract

Can a policy intervention in the stressful first year after a birth affect marital stability? We examine this question using a large expansion in maternity benefits in 1982 in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The program provided partially paid leave until the child's first birthday and included a small cash payment at birth. We use individual-level panel data and compare the Baltics with similar East European countries using a difference-indifferences framework. Maternity benefits decrease divorce within the first year after birth. This decrease persists for at least a decade, indicating that couples avoided divorce altogether rather than simply delaying it. While mothers extended their leave by several months, they returned to full-time work afterwards, consistent with egalitarian gender norms in the labor market.

Suggested Citation

  • Brainerd, Elizabeth & Malkova, Olga, 2023. "Maternity Benefits and Marital Stability after Birth: Evidence from the Soviet Baltic Republics," IZA Discussion Papers 16238, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16238
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16238.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Agrawal David R. & Foremny Dirk, 2022. "Redistribution In A Globalized World," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 242(5-6), pages 551-567, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    marriage; divorce; marital stability; maternity benefits; Baltics; Eastern Europe;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • P2 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies
    • P3 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp16238. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.