EXTENDING PAID MATERNITY LEAVE: HEALTH BENEFITS FOR CHILDREN

New research published in the February 2005 Economic Journal finds health benefits for children of longer maternity leaves. With the UK government proposing to extend paid maternity leave from six to nine months (and possibly to twelve months), three reports on parental leave, early maternal employment and child outcomes, edited by Professors Paul Gregg and Jane Waldfogel, show that:

• Longer paid maternity leave reduces infant mortality, but unpaid leave does not have the same protective effect. Extending paid leave in the UK from six months to twelve months would reduce infant mortality by 6.8%.
• Longer leave improves other health outcomes. In particular, children whose mothers return to work within the first three months after birth receive less health care and are less likely to be breast-fed.
• Longer leave also improves cognitive outcomes. Children whose mothers return to full-time work in the first eighteen months score lower on later cognitive tests, although not if they have been in formal (paid) child care.

The implication of these findings is that a multi-faceted policy approach – one that provides the option of paid parental leave alongside the option of high-quality paid child care and supporting mothers to be able to work part-time if they wish – would be best in terms of children's cognitive development. This will be welcome news to UK policy-makers who have been pursuing just such an approach, extending maternity leave while also expanding support for child care subsidies and introducing a right to return part-time unless employers can make a case that it would incur substantive costs.

What should government be doing to support parents in arranging care for young children? Is it better for children to be home with parents for a period of time and, if so, how long? Is there any evidence that government policies influence parents' decisions about the care of their young children and, through that mechanism, children's health and development? Previous research sheds little light on these questions. Three main findings emerge from these reports, each of which has implications for policy.

The first main finding is that longer periods of maternity leave lead to improved child health. Sakiko Tanaka finds that longer periods of paid leave are associated with reductions in infant mortality since women who have long periods of leave take some of their leave before the birth. Jane Waldfogel and colleagues shed light on other possible mechanisms by which maternity leave may be linked with child health: children whose mothers stay away from work for more than twelve weeks are more likely to be breast-fed, are breast-fed longer, are more likely to be fully immunised, and are more likely to receive recommended preventative (‘well-baby') care.

The policy implication of this finding is clear: extending paid job-protected maternity leave will lead to improvements in child health. How large the gains are will depend on what the current leave entitlement and how long the extensions are.

The second main finding is that the timing of mothers' return to work within the first year of life matters. But the effects of timing are different for child health, cognitive development, and social and emotional development. Jane Waldfogel and colleagues find that returning in the first twelve weeks has significant negative effects on child health measures and on subsequent child behaviour problems, but not on one measure of cognitive outcomes (child language at age 3). This result makes sense given the timing of language development, which begins much later than in the first twelve weeks.

These results suggest that there are gains to be made in terms of child health and also later behaviour problems if mothers are able to stay home at least part-time during the first twelve weeks after birth. This finding is particularly significant for the United States, where many new mothers return full-time by twelve weeks and where the policy context encourages or mandates early returns.

The third main finding is that the links between full-time maternal employment in the first year and poorer child cognitive development that have been found in US studies are also found in a contemporary cohort of children in the UK. Paul Gregg and colleagues provide evidence that full-time maternal employment in the first eighteen months is linked with poorer child cognitive outcomes. Part-time employment in the first eighteen months is clearly not harmful.

The research explores variations in the impact of early full-time employment and concludes that the effect is stronger for mothers with at least GCSE levels of education and where the replacement child care is mainly through unpaid care by friends or relatives, mainly grandparents.

ENDS

Notes for editors: ‘Parental Leave, Early Maternal Employment and Child Outcomes' edited by Paul Gregg and Jane Waldfogel is published in the February 2005 issue of the Economic Journal.

Gregg is Professor of Economics at the Centre for Market and Public Organisation (CMPO), University of Bristol.

Waldfogel is Professor of Social Work and Public Affairs, Columbia University. 1255 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027.

For further information: contact Paul Gregg on 0117-928-9083 (email: P.Gregg@bristol.ac.uk); Jane Waldfogel on +1-212-851-2408 (email: jw205@columbia.edu); or RES Media Consultant Romesh Vaitilingam on 0117-983-9770 or 07768-661095 (email: romesh@compuserve.com).