Support for Paid Family Leave among Small Employers Increases during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ann P. Bartel, Maya Rossin-Slater, Christopher Ruhm, Meredith Slopen and Jane Waldfogel

No 29486, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The United States is one of the few countries that does not guarantee paid family leave (PFL) to workers. Proposals for PFL legislation are often met with opposition from employer organizations, who fear disruptions to business, especially among small employers. But there has been limited data on employers’ views. We surveyed firms with 10-99 employees in New York and New Jersey on their attitudes towards PFL programs before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found high support for state PFL programs in 2019 that rose substantially over the course of the pandemic: by the fall of 2020, almost 70% of firms were supportive. Increases in support were larger among firms that had an employee use PFL, suggesting that experience with PFL led to employers becoming more supportive. Thus, concerns about negative impacts on small employers should not impede efforts to expand PFL at the state or federal levels.

JEL-codes: H50 I18 I38 J38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent and nep-hea
Note: CH LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published as Ann P. Bartel & Maya Rossin-Slater & Christopher J. Ruhm & Meredith Slopen & Jane Waldfogel, 2021. "Support for Paid Family Leave among Small Employers Increases during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, vol 7.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w29486.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:29486

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w29486

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().