Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Many American workers have to quit their jobs or are laid off for reasons related to family caregiving. Female workers, compared to their male counterparts, are more likely to leave their jobs for family caregiving reasons and experience economic insecurity due to employment interruptions (Baxter et al. 2014; Lee & Tang, 2015). Unemployment Insurance (UI) has played a critical role in providing income support for unemployed workers since 1935. In an attempt to keep pace with changes in the economy and the workforce over the past few decades, Congress passed the Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act (UIMA) in 2009 to expand eligibility rules. Reform provisions include implementing alternative base periods (ABPs) that relax the work history requirements, accepting compelling family reasons (CFRs) for leaving jobs, and adopting part-time provisions that allow UI claimants seeking part-time work (PTW). The variation in UIM adoption at different times across states serves as a natural experiment to test the effects of UIM provisions.

While previous research has suggested that the UIM provisions improve the UI accessibility and eligibility for workers (Bleemer, 2013; Callan, Lindner, & Nichols, 2015), these studies did not directly analyze the effects UIM provisions on individual benefit receipt among unemployed workers with children. This research aims to address two questions: (1) Did the UIM provisions increase UI receipt among unemployed workers with children? (2) Did the policy effects differ by gender?

Methods

I use the 2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and merge it with state UI policy information. I restrict the sample to unemployed workers who lived with children during the survey period (N=131,137). I perform difference-in-differences (DD) to evaluate the UIM effects. To examine the gendered effects of UIM provisions, I test the final DD model for two samples stratified by gender. I explore alternative model specifications to test heterogeneous policy effects and account for the complex structure in the panel and multilevel data (e.g., Difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) and mixed effects modeling).

Results

Preliminary results show that all the three UIM provisions did not significantly increase the probability of receiving UI among unemployed workers with children during the 2008-2013 period. However, the three provisions reveal different patterns of gendered effects on UI receipt: the ABP provision increases gender difference in UI receipt by 2.4 percentage points, the PTW provision decreases gender difference in UI receipt by 3.1 percentage points, and the CFR provision has no gendered effect, controlling for individual-level and state-level covariates.

Conclusion and Implications

The results suggest that male unemployed workers with children benefit more from the ABP provision, while female unemployed workers with children benefit more from the PT provision. The overall UIM effect would have been larger if all states implemented all UIM provisions. Findings will inform future reforms that accommodate for the work-family conflict and improve the gender equity of the UI system.