Support or Strain? The Real-World Impact of Family Policy on Health, Care, and Work

Session Submission Type: Paper Panel

Abstract

Papers featured in this session use primarily quantitative methods to examine policies and programs that aim to support families with children. Specifically, the panel will feature two papers focused on early care and education systems, and two focused on the consequences of state adoption of paid family leave policies. Taken together, the papers on paid family leave (PFL) point toward the significance of such policies for health incomes including parental sleep duration and use of postpartum health care. The early care and education papers explore questions of implementation and uptake. This includes one paper documenting the uptake of subsidized child care among middle-income families when they are made eligible for the program, and another exploring the decision-making processes of early care and education providers when choosing whether to participate in the various programs available for funding early care and education services. Collectively, the papers provide a breadth of perspectives and approaches to the broad questions of whether programs and policies intended to support families with children are effective in doing so, and whether they are taken up by families and service providers as intended.

Policy Area

• Family and Child Policy

Chair

• Erica Elaine Meade, New America

Discussants

• Mary E Collins, Boston University

• Erica Elaine Meade, New America

Individual Presentations

• Child Care Subsidy Eligibility and Uptake in New Mexico After Policy Expansion - Non-Presenting Co-Author: Hailey Heinz, University of New Mexico; Presenting Author: Andrew L. Breidenbach, University of New Mexico

• Paid Parental Leave and Maternal Health: A Difference-in-Differences Study Using PRAMS 2012–2022 - Presenting Author: Amelia Ruth Reese, University of California - Los Angeles; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Keri Lintz, University of California - Los Angeles; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Dana Beck, University of California - Los Angeles

• Impact of Paid Family Leave (PFL) on Hours of Sleep - Presenting Author: Niloufar Erfanibehrouz, Syracuse University