Search Results

Title: Family Leave and Child Outcomes: Evidence from the NLSY
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Berger, Lawrence Marc
Hill, Jennifer L.
Waldfogel, Jane
Family Leave and Child Outcomes: Evidence from the NLSY
Presented: Atlanta, GA, Population Association of America Annual Meetings, May 2002
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Breastfeeding; Child Health; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Pre/post Natal Health Care

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

While family leave policies have been advocated on the grounds that they allow new mothers to take longer maternity leaves, thus promoting better child outcomes, the empirical evidence on the connection between leave policies, leave-taking, and child outcomes is scarce. In this paper, we utilize data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to estimate both the effect of family leave coverage on leave-taking, and the effect of leave-taking on child outcomes. Our data include detailed measures of family leave coverage, usage, and length of leave, child health and development, and parental behaviors. By shedding light on the pathway from family leave policies to child outcomes, the results prove relevant not only to the literature on the effects of early experiences on child outcomes, but also to the current policy debate about allowing more workers to take leaves and for longer periods of time.

Berger, Hill and Waldfogel (2002) find that family leave coverage is associated with more breast-feeding and that children whose mothers did not have family leave coverage scored lower on tests of their cognitive ability at ages 3 and 4. They also document that women who return to work between 0 and 6 weeks following the birth of a child are less likely to breast-feed, to have taken their child to a well baby visit and to have had their child immunized.

Bibliography Citation
Berger, Lawrence Marc, Jennifer L. Hill and Jane Waldfogel. "Family Leave and Child Outcomes: Evidence from the NLSY." Presented: Atlanta, GA, Population Association of America Annual Meetings, May 2002.