IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jku/cdlwps/wp1806.html

The Effect of Prenatal Maternity Leave on Short and Long-term Child Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander Ahammer
  • Martin Halla
  • Nicole Schneeweis

Abstract

Maternity leave policies are presumed to be essential to ensure the health of pregnant workers and their unborn children. However, little is known about the optimal duration of prenatal maternity leave and existing policies are not evidence-based. We evaluate a substantial maternity leave extension in Austria, which increased mandatory leave prior to birth from six to eight weeks. Our estimation strategy exploits that the eligibility for the extended leave was determined by a cutoff due date. As an additional source of exogenous variation, we use information on non-working mothers, who are not eligible for maternity leave. Across estimations, we consistently find no evidence for significant effects of this extension on children’s health at birth, subsequent maternal health and fertility, and longterm human capital outcomes of children. Our finding is confirmed by a supplementary cross-country panel analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Ahammer & Martin Halla & Nicole Schneeweis, "undated". "The Effect of Prenatal Maternity Leave on Short and Long-term Child Outcomes," CDL Aging, Health, Labor working papers 2018-06, The Christian Doppler (CD) Laboratory Aging, Health, and the Labor Market, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    • Handle: RePEc:jku:cdlwps:wp1806
    Note: English
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cdecon.jku.at/wp-content/uploads/wp1806CD.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. Chuard, Caroline, 2020. "Womb at work: The missing impact of maternal employment on newborn health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    2. Fabel, Marc, 2021. "Maternity leave and children's health outcomes in the long-term," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Renner, Anna-Theresa & Shaikh, Mujaheed & Spitzer, Sonja, 2023. "The long-term impact of maternal leave duration on smoking behavior," MPRA Paper 118675, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Shirlee Lichtman-Sadot & Neta Benshalom-Tirosh & Eyal Sheiner, 2020. "Conflict, Rockets, and Birth Outcomes: Evidence from Israel’s Operation Protective Edge," Working Papers 2009, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    5. Anna Raute & Andrea Weber & Galina Zudenkova, 2022. "Can public policy increase paternity acknowledgement? Evidence from earnings-related parental leave," Working Papers 937, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    6. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2024. "Sick Leave and Medical Leave in the United States: A Categorization and Recent Trends," IZA Policy Papers 206, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Phuong Huu Khiem & Do Bao Linh & Tran Viet Khanh & Do Anh Tai, 2024. "Does maternity leave reform impact on the labour supply of the elderly? Evidence from a natural experiment in Vietnam," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 38(3), pages 365-394, September.
    8. Lichtman-Sadot, Shirlee & Benshalom-Tirosh, Neta & Sheiner, Eyal, 2020. "Conflict, Rockets, and Birth Outcomes: Evidence from Israel's Operation Protective Edge," IZA Discussion Papers 13394, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. René Böheim & David Pichler, 2025. "Earnings volatility in Austria," Economics working papers 2025-04, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    10. Fabian Duarte & Valentina Paredes & Cristobal Bennett & Isabel Poblete, 2024. "Impact of an extension of maternity leave on infant health," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(1), pages 1-30, March.
    11. Renner, Anna-Theresa & Shaikh, Mujaheed & Spitzer, Sonja, 2025. "Absence from work and lifetime smoking behavior: Evidence from European maternal leave policies," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    12. Rannveig Hart & Janna Bergsvik & Agnes Fauske & Wookun Kim, 2023. "Causal Analysis of Policy Effects on Fertility," Departmental Working Papers 2309, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
    13. Bellés-Obrero, Cristina & Cabrales, Antonio & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi & Vall-Castelló, Judit, 2023. "Women’s education, fertility and children’ health during a gender equalization process: Evidence from a child labor reform in Spain," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    14. Regmi, Krishna & Wang, Le, 2022. "Maternity Leave," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1184, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    15. Canaan, Serena & Lassen, Anne Sophie & Rosenbaum, Philip & Steingrimsdottir, Herdis, 2022. "Maternity Leave and Paternity Leave: Evidence on the Economic Impact of Legislative Changes in High Income Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 15129, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Barnish, Maxwell S. & Tan, Si Ying & Robinson, Sophie & Taeihagh, Araz & Melendez-Torres, G.J., 2023. "A realist synthesis to develop an explanatory model of how policy instruments impact child and maternal health outcomes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 339(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • J83 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Workers' Rights
    • J88 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Public Policy

    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:jku:cdlwps:wp1806. 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: René Böheim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vlinzat.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.