Working Paper: NBER ID: w19452
Authors: Natalia Danzer; Victor Lavy
Abstract: This paper investigates the question whether long-term human capital outcomes are affected by the duration of maternity leave, i.e. by the time mothers spend at home with their newborn before returning to work. Employing RD and difference-in-difference approaches, this paper exploits an unanticipated reform in Austria which extended the maximum duration of paid and job protected parental leave from 12 to 24 months for children born on July 1, 1990 or later. We use test scores from the Austrian PISA test of birth cohorts 1990 and 1987 as measure of human capital. The evidence suggest no significant overall impact of the extended parental leave mandate on standardized test scores at age 15, but that the subgroup of boys of highly educated mothers have benefited from this reform while boys of low educated mothers were harmed by it.
Keywords: Parental Leave; Children's Outcomes; Cognitive Development; Human Capital
JEL Codes: J13; J22; J24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Maternal education (I24) | Children's cognitive outcomes (test scores) (I21) |
| Child gender (J13) | Children's cognitive outcomes (test scores) (I21) |
| Parental leave reform (J22) | Children's cognitive outcomes (test scores) (I21) |
| Parental leave reform (J22) | Test scores for boys of highly educated mothers (I24) |
| Parental leave reform (J22) | Test scores for boys of lower educated mothers (I24) |