IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v113y1998i1p285-317..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economic Consequences of Parental Leave Mandates: Lessons from Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher J. Ruhm

Abstract

This study investigates the economic consequences of rights to paid parental leave in nine European countries over the 1969 through 1993 period. Since women use virtually all parental leave in most nations, men constitute a reasonable comparison group, and most of the analysis examines how changes in paid leave affect the gap between female and male labor market outcomes. The employment-to-populations ratios of women in their prime childbearing years are also compared with those of corresponding aged men and older females. Parental leave is associated with increases in women's employment, but with reductions in their relative wages at extended durations.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher J. Ruhm, 1998. "The Economic Consequences of Parental Leave Mandates: Lessons from Europe," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 285-317.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:113:y:1998:i:1:p:285-317.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1162/003355398555586
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klerman, J. & Leibowitz, A., 1995. "Labor Supply Effects of State Maternity Leave Legislation," Papers 95-24, RAND - Labor and Population Program.
    2. Blackburn, McKinley L., 1997. "Misspecified skedastic functions in grouped-data models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 1-8, August.
    3. Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993. "Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
    4. Gruber, Jonathan, 1994. "The Incidence of Mandated Maternity Benefits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 622-641, June.
    5. Olivia S. Mitchell, 1990. "The Effects of Mandating Benefits Packages," NBER Working Papers 3260, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Jonathan Gruber & Alan B. Krueger, 1991. "The Incidence of Mandated Employer-Provided Insurance: Lessons from Workers' Compensation Insurance," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 5, pages 111-144, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Kuhn, Peter, 1992. "Mandatory Notice," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(2), pages 117-137, April.
    8. Alan Krueger, 1994. "Observations on Employment-Based Government Mandates, With Particular Reference to Health Insurance," Working Papers 702, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    9. Jacob Alex Klerman & Arleen Leibowitz, 1994. "The Work-Employment Distinction among New Mothers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(2), pages 277-303.
    10. Alan B. Krueger, 1994. "Observations on Employment-Based Government Mandates, With Particular Reference to Health Insurance," Working Papers 702, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher J. Ruhm & Jackqueline L. Teague, 1995. "Parental Leave Policies in Europe and North America," NBER Working Papers 5065, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Lehrer, Steven F. & Pereira, Nuno Sousa, 2007. "Worker sorting, compensating differentials and health insurance: Evidence from displaced workers," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 1034-1056, September.
    3. Baum, Charles II, 2003. "The effect of state maternity leave legislation and the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act on employment and wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(5), pages 573-596, October.
    4. Jonathan Gruber & Aaron Yelowitz, 1999. "Public Health Insurance and Private Savings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(6), pages 1249-1274, December.
    5. Jonathan Gruber & James M. Poterba, 1996. "Tax Subsidies to Employer-Provided Health Insurance," NBER Chapters, in: Empirical Foundations of Household Taxation, pages 135-168, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Kugler, Adriana & Kugler, Maurice, 2003. "The labor market effects of payroll taxes in a middle-income country: evidence from Colombia," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0306, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    7. Christine Jolls, 2007. "Employment Law and the Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 13230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Kim, Jinyoung & Kim, Seonghoon & Koh, Kanghyock, 2022. "Labor market institutions and the incidence of payroll taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    9. Kevin J. Murphy, 2003. "A General Equilibrium Model of the Payroll Tax Incidence of State Unemployment Insurance Systems," Public Finance Review, , vol. 31(1), pages 44-65, January.
    10. Adriana Kugler & Maurice Kugler, 2009. "Labor Market Effects of Payroll Taxes in Developing Countries: Evidence from Colombia," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(2), pages 335-358, January.
    11. David M. Cutler & Brigitte C. Madrian, 1998. "Labor Market Responses to Rising Health Insurance Costs: Evidence on Hours Worked," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(3), pages 509-530, Autumn.
    12. Kugler, Adriana & Kugler, Maurice, 2003. "The Labor Market Effects of Payroll Taxes in a Middle-Income Country: Evidence from Colombia," IZA Discussion Papers 852, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Brigitte C. Madrian, 2005. "The U.S. health care system and labor markets," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 50(Jun), pages 137-163.
    14. Ellen Meara & Meredith Rosenthal & Anna Sinaiko & Katherine Baicker, 2008. "State and Federal Approaches to Health Reform: What Works for the Working Poor?," NBER Working Papers 14125, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. María F. Prada & Graciana Rucci & Sergio S. Urzúa, 2015. "The Effect of Mandated Child Care on Female Wages in Chile," NBER Working Papers 21080, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. ASAI Yukiko, 2019. "Costs of Employment and Flexible Labor Demand: Evidence from Maternity and Parental Leave Reforms," Discussion papers 19024, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    17. Thede, Susanna, 2012. "A Simple Model of Trade, Job Task Offshoring and Social Insurance," Working Papers 2012:16, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    18. Kevin F. Hallock & Xin Jin & Michael Waldman, 2022. "The total compensation gap, wage gap and benefit gap between workers with and without a disability," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 60(1), pages 3-31, March.
    19. Thomas C. Buchmueller & John DiNardo & Robert G. Valletta, 2011. "The Effect of an Employer Health Insurance Mandate on Health Insurance Coverage and the Demand for Labor: Evidence from Hawaii," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 25-51, November.
    20. Dizioli, Allan & Pinheiro, Roberto, 2016. "Health insurance as a productive factor," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-24.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:113:y:1998:i:1:p:285-317.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.