Publication: The Impact of Paid Maternity Leave on Women’s Employment: Evidence Using Firm-Level Survey Data from Developing Countries
Date
2022-09
ISSN
Published
2022-09
Author(s)
Amin, Mohammad
Islam, Asif M.
Abstract
The relationship between paid
maternity leave and the share of female workers in
registered private firms is analyzed using firm-level survey
data for 111 developing and emerging countries.
Theoretically, the relationship can be either positive or
negative. Higher maternity leave raises the cost of female
workers to the employer, discouraging female employment.
However, higher maternity leave encourages more females to
enter the labor market, implying greater female employment.
The results show that the latter effect dominates. That is,
a positive, large, and statistically significant
relationship is found between maternity leave and female
employment. A conservative baseline estimate is that the
share of female workers in a firm increases by 2.08
percentage points for each log point increase in the number
of days of paid maternity leave. Alternatively, an increase
in the number of days of paid maternity leave from its
smallest to highest value (0 to 410 days) increases the
share of female workers by 12.5 percentage points. The
positive relationship between female workers and maternity
leave is much larger when maternity leave is fully funded by
the government than when paid for by the employer, and in
countries where there is a higher share of females in the
childbearing age group of 20–29 years. These heterogeneities
highlight channels that accentuate the relationship, thereby
serving as checks against endogeneity concerns with the
estimation. The distributional implications of paid
maternity leave are also analyzed by estimating its impact
on low-skilled versus high-skilled employment. Important
policy implications of the findings are discussed.
Citation
“Amin, Mohammad; Islam, Asif M.. 2022. The Impact of Paid Maternity Leave on Women’s Employment : Evidence Using Firm-Level Survey Data from Developing Countries. Policy Research Working Papers;10188. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/38038?show=full License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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