What Is the Case for Paid Maternity Leave?
Abstract
We assess the case for generous government-funded maternity leave, focusing on a series of policy reforms in Norway that expanded paid leave from 18 to 35 weeks. We find the reforms do not crowd out unpaid leave and that mothers spend more time at home without a reduction in family income. The increased maternity leave has little effect on children's schooling, parental earnings and labor force participation, completed fertility, marriage, or divorce. The expansions, whose net costs amounted to 0.25% of GDP, have negative redistribution properties and imply a considerable increases in taxes at a cost to economic efficiency.
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Of six small Norwegian parental leave expansions, only one had a marginally significant impact on mothers' number of children 14 years later (+1.6 percent, p < 0.1).
“Only one expansion had a marginally significant impact on mothers' number of children 14 years later (+1.6 percent, p < 0.1).”
From Can Policies Stall the Fertility Fall? A Systematic Review of the (Quasi‐) Experimental Literature (2021) · cites this paper as Dahl et al. (2016)
Features of parental leave reforms in Nordic countries mean that the estimated reform effect is a poor measure of the total policy effect.
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From Can Policies Stall the Fertility Fall? A Systematic Review of the (Quasi‐) Experimental Literature (2021) · cites this paper as Dahl et al. 2016
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References 27 · Cited by 336
- Authors
- Dahl, G. B., Løken, K. V., Mogstad, M., & Salvanes, K. V.
- Affiliations
- University of California San Diego (US)
- University of Bergen (NO)
- National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
- University of Oslo (NO)
- Venue
- Review of Economics and Statistics
- Publisher
- MIT Press - Journals
- Published
- 2016-10
- Volume
- 98
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 655-670
- ISSN
- 0034-6535 (ISSN-L)
- 1530-9142
- OpenAlex
- W3122847359
- Cited by
- 336
- References
- 27
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 131 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 28 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 1 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 35.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Review of Economics and Statistics (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Work-Family Balance Challenges
- Social Sciences › Demography › Family Dynamics and Relationships
- Keywords
- paid maternity leave, Norway, unpaid leave, crowding out, household income, children's education, parental earnings, labor force participation, fertility, marriage, divorce, redistribution, tax incidence, economic efficiency, policy reform
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