Paid Family Leave and Breastfeeding: Evidence from California

Jessica E. Pac, Ann P. Bartel, Christopher Ruhm and Jane Waldfogel

No 25784, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper evaluates the effect of Paid Family Leave (PFL) on breastfeeding, which we identify using California’s enactment of a 2004 PFL policy that ensured mothers up to six weeks of leave at a 55 percent wage replacement rate. We employ synthetic control models for a large, representative sample of over 270,000 children born between 2000 and 2012 drawn from the restricted-use versions of the 2003 – 2014 National Immunization Surveys. Our estimates indicate that PFL increases the overall duration of breastfeeding by nearly 18 days, and the likelihood of breastfeeding for at least six months by 5 percentage points. We find substantially larger effects of PFL on breastfeeding duration for some disadvantaged mothers.

JEL-codes: I12 I18 J13 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ore
Note: CH EH LS PE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Working Paper: Paid Family Leave and Breastfeeding: Evidence from California (2019)
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