Broadening the Evidence on State Paid Leave Access and Outcomes

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The growth in state paid leave insurance programs is one of the most consequential social policy developments in the past 15 years.  There are now 13 states and the District of Columbia with operating or planned paid leave programs, which provide partial wage replacement and, in some cases, job protection, while workers care for themselves or family members. Unlike sick leave mandates, these programs offer weeks-long leave for serious medical conditions and the arrival of a new child in the family. Unlike FMLA, they offer partial to full wage replacement during the leave.  Unlike employer-provided paid leave, eligibility for state paid leave is more inclusive and portable (not tied to one job).

Research on the impacts of paid and unpaid leave for health and employment are largely positive, and often the benefits are larger for less-educated or lower-income workers.  Much of this research focuses on the impacts on new parents and children, and uses the contexts of California and New Jersey, two of the early states to adopt a paid leave program.  The papers in this panel offer evidence from a broader set of states and populations, continuing to build evidence on the connections between program design, equitable access, and outcomes. 

The first paper uses time use data to describe access to and unmet need for leave among older adults, ages 55-70, an important and understudied group of workers who could benefit from paid leave programs. The authors find that access to leave declines with age and is lower for some sub-groups, including Hispanic older adults. The second paper uses administrative data from Washington State’s paid leave program to estimate job protection rates among workers. They find that only half of workers in the state eligible for paid leave, and only 16% of lower earning workers, have legal job protection while taking leave. The findings point to inequitable access to job-protected paid leave among workers.

The third and fourth papers use quasi-experiments to examine how access to paid leave relates to outcomes for new mothers.  In paper 3, the authors examine how access to paid leave in seven states relates to leave-taking, labor force participation, and employment, and whether those effects are moderated by other policies in the state. Consistent with prior studies, they find positive effects of access to leave on leave-taking and maternal employment, but also interesting moderating effects of Unemployment Insurance and childcare subsidies. The fourth paper examines the anti-poverty effects of New York’s Paid Family Leave program using data from the 2016–2022 American Community Survey and a difference-in-differences design. Access to paid leave is associated with a modest but statistically significant reduction in poverty and an increase in income-to-needs ratios among families with 1-year-olds, accompanied by increases in maternal employment and earnings. The poverty-reducing effects were especially concentrated among mothers with higher-order births, White mothers, and those with a high school degree or less.

Our panel includes two expert discussants, Lea Bart at the Congressional Budget Office and Pam Joshi at Boston University.

Policy Area

• Family and Child Policy

Secondary Policy Area

• Poverty and Income Policy

Chair

• Alejandra Ros Pilarz, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Discussants

• Lea Bart, University of Michigan Ann Arbor

• Pamela Kumari Joshi, Boston University

Organizer

• Heather D Hill, University of Washington

Individual Presentations

• Access and Use of Paid Leave Among Older Adults - Presenting Author: Meredith Slopen, Stony Brook University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Arash Pourebrahimi, CUNY Graduate Center

• Job Protection during Paid Leave: Evidence from Washington State on Access and Take-up - Presenting Author: Thomas Lindman, Harvard University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Heather D Hill, University of Washington

• Collective Impacts: PFML Interacts with State Policies to Predict Maternal Employment - Presenting Author: Jessica Erin Pac, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Alejandra Ros Pilarz, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Meredith Slopen, Stony Brook University; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Runshi Tang, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• The Effects of New York’s Paid Family Leave on Poverty Following Childbirth - Presenting Author: Jiwan Lee, Brown University