Can Maternity Benefits Have Long-Term Effects on Childbearing? Evidence from Soviet Russia

Olga Malkova

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2018, vol. 100, issue 4, 691-703

Abstract: This paper quantifies the effects of Russia’s 1981 expansion in maternity benefits on completed childbearing. The program provided one year of partially paid parental leave and a small cash transfer upon a child’s birth. I exploit the program’s two-stage implementation and find evidence that women had more children as a result of the program. Fertility rates rose immediately by 8.2% over twelve months. The increase in fertility rates not only persisted for the ten-year duration of the program, but it reflected large increases in higher-order births to older women who already had children before the program started.

Date: 2018
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