IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v18y1999i2p281-302.html

The impact of the family and medical leave act

Author

Listed:
  • Jane Waldfogel

    (Columbia University)

Abstract

This article uses data from employer surveys and the March Current Population Survey to investigate the impact of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) on coverage, leave-taking, employment, and earnings. The variation in state laws prior to the FMLA and the variation in coverage under the FMLA provides a “natural experiment” in which the effect of the law can be compared for treatment and con-trol groups. Although the FMLA covers less than half of workers in the private sector (many of whom already had coverage pre-FMLA), this article finds that leave cover-age and usage did increase post-FMLA. The other surprising finding is that this mandated benefit had no significant negative effects on women's employment or wages. ©1999 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Suggested Citation

  • Jane Waldfogel, 1999. "The impact of the family and medical leave act," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(2), pages 281-302.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:18:y:1999:i:2:p:281-302
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1520-6688(199921)18:2<281::AID-PAM5>3.0.CO;2-J
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jan Ondrich & Katharina C. Spieß & Qing Yang, 2002. "The Effect of Maternity Leave on Women's Pay in Germany 1984-1994," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 289, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Anderson, Patricia M. & Meyer, Bruce D., 1997. "The effects of firm specific taxes and government mandates with an application to the U.S. unemployment insurance program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 119-145, August.
    3. Christopher J. Ruhm, 1997. "Policy Watch: The Family and Medical Leave Act," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 175-186, Summer.
    4. Gruber, Jonathan, 1994. "The Incidence of Mandated Maternity Benefits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 622-641, June.
    5. Waldfogel, Jane, 1998. "The Family Gap for Young Women in the United States and Britain: Can Maternity Leave Make a Difference?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(3), pages 505-545, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Dorothea Alewell & Kerstin Pull, 2001. "An Internatioal Comparison and Assessment of Maternity Leave Regulation," Working Paper Series A 2001-02, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, School of of Economics and Business Administration.
    2. Jane Waldfogel, 1998. "Understanding the "Family Gap" in Pay for Women with Children," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 137-156, Winter.
    3. Baum, Charles II, 2003. "The effect of state maternity leave legislation and the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act on employment and wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(5), pages 573-596, October.
    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. Clément Carbonnier, 2014. "Payroll Taxation and the structure of qualifications and wages in a segmented frictional labor market with intrafirm bargaining," Thema Working Papers 2014-20, THEMA (Théorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), CY Cergy-Paris University, ESSEC and CNRS.
    6. Kevin J. Murphy, 2003. "A General Equilibrium Model of the Payroll Tax Incidence of State Unemployment Insurance Systems," Public Finance Review, , vol. 31(1), pages 44-65, January.
    7. Hildegunn E. Stokke, 2021. "Regional payroll tax cuts and individual wages: heterogeneous effects of worker ability and firm productivity," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(6), pages 1360-1384, December.
    8. Fernández-Kranz, Daniel & Rodríguez-Planas, Núria, 2013. "Can Parents' Right to Work Part-Time Hurt Childbearing-Aged Women? A Natural Experiment with Administrative Data," IZA Discussion Papers 7509, IZA Network @ LISER.
    9. Fernández-Kranz, Daniel & Rodríguez-Planas, Núria, 2021. "Too family friendly? The consequences of parent part-time working rights," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    10. Rossin-Slater, Maya, 2017. "Maternity and Family Leave Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 10500, IZA Network @ LISER.
    11. Charles L. Baum, 2004. "The Effect of Government-Mandated Family Leave on Employer Family Leave Policies," Working Papers 200407, Middle Tennessee State University, Department of Economics and Finance.
    12. Hildegunn Ekroll Stokke, 2015. "Regional payroll tax cuts and individual wages: Heterogeneous effects across education groups," Working Paper Series 16815, Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
    13. Murphy, Kevin J., 2007. "The impact of unemployment insurance taxes on wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 457-484, June.
    14. Uta Schönberg & Johannes Ludsteck, 2014. "Expansions in Maternity Leave Coverage and Mothers' Labor Market Outcomes after Childbirth," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(3), pages 469-505.
    15. Bennmarker, Helge & Mellander, Erik & Öckert, Björn, 2009. "Do regional payroll tax reductions boost employment?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 480-489, October.
    16. Ángel Melguizo & José González-Páramo, 2013. "Who bears labour taxes and social contributions? A meta-analysis approach," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 247-271, August.
    17. Patricia M. Anderson & Bruce D. Meyer, 1998. "Using a Natural Experiment to Estimate the Effects of the Unemployment Insurance Payroll Tax on Wages, Employment, Claims, and Denials," NBER Working Papers 6808, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Colin Cannonier, 2014. "Does the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) Increase Fertility Behavior?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 105-132, June.
    19. Stearns, Jenna, 2015. "The effects of paid maternity leave: Evidence from Temporary Disability Insurance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 85-102.
    20. Michael Baker & Kevin Milligan, 2005. "How Does Job-Protected Maternity Leave Affect Mothers' Employment and Infant Health?," NBER Working Papers 11135, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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:wly:jpamgt:v:18:y:1999:i:2:p:281-302. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/34787/home .

    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.