Did California Paid Family Leave Impact Infant Health?

• DOI: 10.1002/pam.22101
• Publication Date: 2018-10-18T21:09:47Z
• Authors: Ariel Marek Pihl; Gaetano Basso
• Keywords: Health Status; Infant, Newborn; Infant; Mothers; Family Leave; California; Parental Leave; 3. Good health; Hospitalization; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Humans; Infant Health

AbstractThe effects of paid parental leave policies on infant health have yet to be established. In this paper we investigate these effects by exploiting the introduction of California Paid Family Leave (PFL), the first program in the U.S. that specifically provides working parents with paid time off for bonding with a newborn. We measure health using the full census of infant hospitalizations in California and a set of control states, and implement a differences‐in‐differences approach. Our results suggest a decline in infant admissions, which is concentrated among those causes that are potentially affected by closer childcare (and to a lesser extent breastfeeding). Other admissions that are unlikely to be affected by parental leave do not exhibit the same pattern.