IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/asiaps/v12y2025i2ne70017.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Extended Maternity Leave and Female Labour Supply: Evidence From a Regional Policy in China

Author

Listed:
  • Mingzhi Hu
  • Yinxin Su

Abstract

Maternity leave for women has been substantially extended in China since the 2016 maternity leave reform, but maternity leave length varies greatly across regions. On the one hand, women are more likely to engage in employment due to extended maternity leave. On the other hand, extended maternity leave can increase the discrimination against women in the labour market and force them to enter into entrepreneurship. Exploiting the 2016 maternity leave reform as an exogenous change in maternity leave for women and employing a difference‐in‐differences framework, this study examines the effect of extended maternity leave on female labour force participation. Using data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey, we find that the maternity leave reform leads to an increase in entrepreneurship rate (employment rate) by 4.74 (1.76) percentage points for women without children, whereas this effect is insignificant for women with children and old women.

Suggested Citation

  • Mingzhi Hu & Yinxin Su, 2025. "Extended Maternity Leave and Female Labour Supply: Evidence From a Regional Policy in China," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(2), May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:asiaps:v:12:y:2025:i:2:n:e70017
    DOI: 10.1002/app5.70017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/app5.70017
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/app5.70017?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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:bla:asiaps:v:12:y:2025:i:2:n:e70017. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=2050-2680 .

    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.