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Title: The Effects of Maternity Leave Legislation on Mothers' Labor Supply After Childbirth
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Baum, Charles L., II |
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The Effects of Maternity Leave Legislation on Mothers' Labor Supply After Childbirth Ph.D. Dissertation, The University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, 1999 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning Keyword(s): Benefits; Endogeneity; Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA); Fertility; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Maternal Employment; Wages, Women; Work Experience In the late 1980s and early 1990s, ten states and the District of Columbia passed maternity leave legislation (MLL) allowing a mother a period of leave from work after childbirth and guaranteeing that she can return to her old job. In 1993, President Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the first piece of federal MLL. Similar to state legislation, the FMLA guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid leave for eligible mothers. However, federal leave mandates have not met with universal approval. President Bush twice vetoed such legislation because of the costs he feared it would impose on business. Others said leave legislation was unnecessary and would have no effect since many firms already offered leave. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), I evaluate the effect of MLL on the timing of a mother's return to work, on whether she returns to work for her pre-childbirth employer or at a new job, and on the number of hours she chooses to work. I also examine the effect of leave mandates on wages and on the amount of leave allowed by employers. I estimate both a semi-structural and a reduced-form empirical model, both of which account for the endogeneity of fertility, wages, and previous labor force experience. My results indicate MLL has virtually no effect on the length of leave allowed by employers. The semi-structural specification indicates MLL slightly increases the hazard rate for returning to work at the pre-childbirth job in the first 6 weeks after childbirth by affecting informal arrangements that determine whether the pre-childbirth job is made available by employers. Additionally, MLL has a negative effect on the wage rate paid to mothers who start new jobs. My findings will help determine whether MLL achieves its goals and whether proposed extensions to existing MLL will be beneficial. |
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Bibliography Citation
Baum, Charles L., II. The Effects of Maternity Leave Legislation on Mothers' Labor Supply After Childbirth. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, 1999. |