Paid Maternity Leave and Female Employment : Evidence Using Firm-Level Survey Data for Developing Countries

Amin, Mohammad ; Islam, Asif

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: MATERNITY LEAVE;    GENDER;    FEMALE EMPLOYMENT;    FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION;    LABOR MARKET;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8715
RP-ID  :  WPS8715

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The relationship between the length ofpaid maternity leave and the proportion of female workers inthe private sector is explored using firm-level survey datafor 66 mostly developing countries. The paper finds a large,positive, and statistically significant relationship betweenthe two. According to the most conservative estimate, anincrease of one week of paid maternity leave is associatedwith a 2.6 percentage points increase in the share ofworkers in a typical firm that are female. As expected, thestated relationship is much larger when the government paysfor maternity leave versus the employer. The results arerobust to several controls for firm and countrycharacteristics and other possible heterogeneities in thematernity leave and female workers relationship.