EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Breastfeeding and the return to work after childbirth of new mothers: Evidence from a baby formula scare

Limor Hatsor and Ity Shurtz

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2025, vol. 44, issue 3, 943-963

Abstract: We use a baby formula “food scare” in Israel in 2003 as a plausible natural experiment to study the causal relationship between breastfeeding and mothers’ return to work after childbirth. Analysis of administrative data covering the universe of births in the country shows that first‐time mothers who gave birth shortly after the scare delayed their return to work. Their average months worked in the first 6 months after childbirth fell by about 11% relative to their counterparts in the previous year. Data from a major medical equipment lender in Israel indicates an increased likelihood of borrowing milk pumps, suggesting that the delay in returning to work was driven by an increase in breastfeeding. The results indicate that despite developments in technology and policy changes in recent decades, mothers still trade off work for the breastfeeding of their children.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.70003

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:44:y:2025:i:3:p:943-963

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Policy Analysis and Management from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-07-02
Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:44:y:2025:i:3:p:943-963