Does paid family leave save infant lives? Evidence from California's paid family leave program

Abstract

Paid family leave (PFL) aims to help working parents balance their careers and family responsibilities while also improving the well-being of infants. Using linked U.S. birth and infant death data with a difference-in-differences framework, I find that a 6-week PFL in California reduced the post-neonatal mortality rate by 0.135- that is, it saved approximately 339 infant lives. There were fewer deaths from health-related causes and larger effects for infants with married mothers and for infant boys. Additional checks and placebo examinations indicate that the observed effect is not due to contemporaneous shocks but rather is causal.