Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

One economic justification used for paid family leave is to narrow gender gaps in the labor force participation rate. For decades, the female labor force participation rate in the United States has been significantly lower than their male counterparts. From 1990 to 2010, the United States experienced a 5 percent decrease in the gender gap, whereas other OECD countries experienced a greater decrease in the gender gap, by as much as 14 percent. It is likely that the gender gap can be attributed to gender discrimination and the lack of child care, however, some of it may be attributed to the lack of friendly work-family policies, including paid family leave, which are more prevalent in other OECD counties compared to the United States. While several U.S. states have implemented paid family leave during the past several years and Congress recently passed the Federal Employee Paid Leave Act which grants federal employees 12 weeks of paid parental leave for the birth, adoption, or fostering of a child, paid family leave is still not available nationally. Based on economic theory, family leave, when it is paid, should increase the likelihood that women will be in the labor force prior to and after having children, which should increase the overall supply of female workers in the labor market. Thus, the research question of this paper is whether state paid family leave improves the labor market outcomes for mothers which includes factors such as the likelihood of maternal employment, number of hours worked, and the likelihood of working full-time. To examine this research question, the study utilizes individual-level data in the United States from the 2003 to 2019 Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), in which a triple difference-in-difference estimator will be used. This study will specifically examine the availability and the actual usage of state paid family leave among mothers.