IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pmed00/1001985.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Increased Duration of Paid Maternity Leave Lowers Infant Mortality in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Author

Listed:
  • Arijit Nandi
  • Mohammad Hajizadeh
  • Sam Harper
  • Alissa Koski
  • Erin C Strumpf
  • Jody Heymann

Abstract

Background: Maternity leave reduces neonatal and infant mortality rates in high-income countries. However, the impact of maternity leave on infant health has not been rigorously evaluated in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In this study, we utilized a difference-in-differences approach to evaluate whether paid maternity leave policies affect infant mortality in LMICs. Methods and Findings: We used birth history data collected via the Demographic and Health Surveys to assemble a panel of approximately 300,000 live births in 20 countries from 2000 to 2008; these observational data were merged with longitudinal information on the duration of paid maternity leave provided by each country. We estimated the effect of an increase in maternity leave in the prior year on the probability of infant (

Suggested Citation

  • Arijit Nandi & Mohammad Hajizadeh & Sam Harper & Alissa Koski & Erin C Strumpf & Jody Heymann, 2016. "Increased Duration of Paid Maternity Leave Lowers Infant Mortality in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Quasi-Experimental Study," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-18, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pmed00:1001985
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001985
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001985
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001985&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001985?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Claire Samtleben & Julia Bringmann & Mareike Bünning & Lena Hipp, 2019. "What Helps and What Hinders? Exploring the Role of Workplace Characteristics for Parental Leave Use and Its Career Consequences," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-30, September.
    2. Julia M. Goodman & Janne Boone-Heinonen & Dawn M. Richardson & Sarah B. Andrea & Lynne C. Messer, 2018. "Analyzing Policies Through a DOHaD Lens: What Can We Learn?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Grace Puliyel & Hoolda Kim & Sophie Mitra, 2020. "Paid maternity leave and child mortality in Asia and the Pacific," Asia-Pacific Sustainable Development Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 27(1), pages 95-120, June.
    4. Malat, Jennifer & Mayorga-Gallo, Sarah & Williams, David R., 2018. "The effects of whiteness on the health of whites in the USA," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 148-156.
    5. Fallon, Kathleen M. & Mazar, Alissa & Swiss, Liam, 2017. "The Development Benefits of Maternity Leave," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 102-118.
    6. Tuan T. Nguyen & Jennifer Cashin & Ha T. T. Tran & Duong H. Vu & Arijit Nandi & Minh T. Phan & Nguyen D. C. Van & Amy Weissman & Toan N. Pham & Binh V. Nguyen & Roger Mathisen, 2022. "Awareness, Perceptions, Gaps, and Uptake of Maternity Protection among Formally Employed Women in Vietnam," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-16, April.
    7. Deidda, Manuela & Geue, Claudia & Kreif, Noemi & Dundas, Ruth & McIntosh, Emma, 2019. "A framework for conducting economic evaluations alongside natural experiments," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 353-361.
    8. Ahmed, Salma & Fielding, David, 2019. "Changes in maternity leave coverage: Implications for fertility, labour force participation and child mortality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    9. Deborah Karasek & Sarah Raifman & William H. Dow & Rita Hamad & Julia M. Goodman, 2022. "Evaluating the Effect of San Francisco’s Paid Parental Leave Ordinance on Birth Outcomes," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-12, September.
    10. Morton, Gregory Duff, 2019. "The power of lump sums: Using maternity payment schedules to reduce the gender asset gap in households reached by Brazil’s Bolsa Família conditional cash transfer," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 352-367.
    11. International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) & UNICEF—Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2020. "Executive Summary—Maternity and paternity in the workplace in Latin America and the Caribbean: a review of national policies for paternity and maternity leave and support to breastfeeding in the workp," Research Report 39, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    12. Kien Le & My Nguyen, 2022. "The long-run impacts of paid maternity leave on height and educational attainment," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, December.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pmed00:1001985. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: plosmedicine (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/ .

    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.