Download Free Three Essays On Family Leave And Childcare Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Three Essays On Family Leave And Childcare and write the review.

This dissertation investigates parental decision making during early childhood. I aim to study how policy can influence parental time investments in children and how cultural norms can influence parental leave take up and early care and education program participation. The first chapter focuses on how the California Paid Family Leave policy influenced the amount of time and type of activities parents perform with their children. The second chapter examines how norms regarding paid parental leave impact parental leave take up in the US. Similarly, the third chapter explores how norms regarding childcare influence childcare attendance.
Many American families have a difficult time balancing their obligations at work with their responsibilities at home. This is especially the case when a member of the family needs an increased level of care giving, for instance after the birth of a child or when a family member is seriously ill. Governments around the world have passed legislation to make these difficult times easier for workers by mandating that employers provide paid family leave to their employees. However the US federal government mandates only 12 weeks of job-protected leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which only covers approximately 60% of US workers and is unpaid. The result is that US workers and families are often unable to take leave when they experience increased responsibilities at home. Proponents of expanding FMLA to include a wage replacement provision argue it would increase a worker's ability to stay home when there is an increase need for caregiving. It would also make the ability to take leave more equal across all workers. And while a number of political movements, on both the state and federal level, have sought to expand FMLA to include a paid provision, most have been unsuccessful due to the strong opposition it faces. Opponents argue that paid family leave mandates will place additional costs on employers, and therefore cause a decrease in employment and wages, especially for women who will be labeled as "risky" workers since they are more likely to take leave compared to their male counterparts. Up until recently it was impossible to test this "job killer" hypothesis, since no paid leave mandates existed in the US. However this changed in 2002 when California passed the first-of-its-kind paid maternity leave legislation. This provides us with a natural experiment to study how paid leave mandates would impact labor markets in the US, as well as study its impact on different family types. Chapter 2 uses establishment level employment data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to study the impact California's policy has had on employment. Most model specifications revealed a positive and significant impact on CA employment, with the policy being correlated with an approximately 2% increase in establishment level employment. In other model specifications the law had a positive but insignificant effect. These findings would suggest that at worst CA's paid family leave mandate was a non-event for establishments in the state, and at best it had positive impact on employment. Chapter 3 examines how CA's policy impacted the wages of workers using data from the Current Population Survey. The analysis shows that the policy is correlated with a modest but positive increase in wages for all workers. It was also shown that women saw a more dramatic increase in their wages, which suggests that the policy has not lead to an increase in statistical discrimination as some opponents feared. Chapter 4 looks at the behavior of non-traditional households by analyzing the maternity leave behavior of women with different relationship statuses. Using both CPS data as well as NLSY97 data this analysis shows that new mothers in cohabiting household behave differently than their married counterparts when it comes to maternity leave, taking significantly shorter leaves and working more hours in the year of birth. The results suggest that their partner's income is not a significant factor in determining their incidence and length of leave. However having access to paid leave increases their willingness and ability to take leave.
This dissertation examines maternity leave policies, utilization and consequences in three separate, but related, papers. In the Introduction, I describe the ways state-level leave policies influence, but do not perfectly predict, utilization and then discuss the heterogeneity of women's experiences during pregnancy and post-partum, and how that heterogeneity informs interpretation of results in this field. In Chapter 2 ("Laboring until labor: the prevalence and correlates of antenatal maternity leave in the United States"), I use a national survey of English-speaking women to examine maternity leave taken in the final weeks of pregnancy. I describe individual-, employer-, and policy-level correlates of antenatal leave (ANL), focusing in particular on variation in state temporary disability insurance (TDI) laws. I find that two-thirds of women in this sample stopped working more than a week before their due date, and that state policies significantly influenced leave-taking, even after controlling for characteristics of women and their jobs. While certain individual-level characteristics of women's work were important, employer policies were not significantly associated with ANL use or duration. The literature does not yet include a national analysis of antenatal leave and its correlates. This paper fills that gap and sets up the following chapter on the consequences of taking ANL. In Chapter 3 ("Antenatal maternity leave and childbirth using the First Baby Study: a propensity score analysis"), I use survey data from a prospective cohort in Pennsylvania to test whether women who take maternity leave at the end of pregnancy have better labor and delivery outcomes. In this sample of women giving birth for the first time, fully half of the sample did not stop working before delivery. Using propensity score matching, I find that women who did stop working at least two days prior to delivery experienced more negative delivery outcomes, including an increased likelihood of unplanned Cesarean section. This paper highlights the strong selection into leave-taking, particularly in a context of limited leave availability. In Chapter 4 ("The impact of California's Paid Family Leave law on maternal time use"), I shift focus to postnatal maternity leave and use the American Time Use Survey, a nationally-representative dataset collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, to examine whether the country's first paid family leave (PFL) law increased the amount of time exposed women spent on childcare and decreased their time in paid work. Using a difference-in-difference-in-difference approach with variation in state, time, and age of youngest child, I find that after PFL, women in California significantly increased the time they spent with children in their care and slightly reduced their time spent working. Exploiting a natural experiment, I am able to avoid some of the selection concerns present in the previous chapter, but the daily diary nature of the data do not illuminate whether time use changed due to leave-taking, schedule changes, or some other factor. The results of these studies will inform future research on maternity leave and maternal health, and guide policymaking with regards to targeting and promoting maternity leave policies.
These essays are for Americans concerned about the future of our country and for policy wonks. By and large, the political process is controlled by those who take an intertest in politics, large in number but small as a percent of population. Are you a member of the political class? Membership is voluntary. Our first 800 years of thinking: science culture and empathy from the Enlightenment ~1600 to ~ 2400 The Crisis of the Anthropocene: The most comprehensive description of all issues of the crisis in less than 100 pages. For the purpose of going through your mind to influence your brain. Musings on our Present Discontent: America, not advanced, not a democracy. Right to life for baby; right to choose for mom. Taxation. The security of a free state. Issues not discussed. The threat from within, Trumpism. The threat from without: Putinism. How to participate. Renewal.
Women continue to face discrimination in the workplace and unequal burdens in non-market work and reproductive health access. This dissertation studies how women make decisions about work and family life in the current policy environment. Chapter 1: Does the introduction of paid family leave in the United States increase fertility? Fertility in California increased by 2.5 percent relative to the rest of the country following the 2004 implementation of a statewide paid family leave. This increase is primarily among higher order (2nd or higher birth parity) births to mothers in their 30s. Chapter 2: Do gender norms influence housework distribution? Immigrants from source countries with more progressive gender norms share housework and childcare more equally between men and women once they immigrate to the U.S., though men primarily spend more time in childcare rather than housework. Immigrants from source countries with less gender equality allocate housework and childcare more traditionally, with women doing a significantly larger share of the housework and childcare. These effects persist into the second generation for men, particularly fathers, but not for women. Chapter 3: Does the type of parent involvement in abortion law differentially impact sexual behavior among minors? Notification laws require abortion providers to notify, via phone or email, a minor's guardians prior to providing the procedure. Consent laws require a notified signature from a guardian to obtain an abortion. I find a statistically significant 4-7 percent increase in pill use at last intercourse for sexually active females in response to a notification law, and a 5 percent decrease in intercourse in the last 3 months following the implementation of a consent law. Neither effect is statistically distinguishable from the effect of the alternate law, suggesting that using one indicator for either type of law is not obscuring individual effects.
This dissertation consists of three essays on labor and demographic economics. The first chapter analyzes the interaction effects between the availability of subsidized childcare and an entitlement to a long job-protected parental leave. My identification strategy exploits the staggered roll-out of a federal expansion in the number of childcare centers for children ages 0-3 in Germany. Using the KiBS household survey and a generalized difference-in-differences approach, I find that an additional daycare center in a locality reduces the duration of maternal leave, which indicates that the two family-friendly policies are substitutes. Interior immigration enforcement in the U.S. has increasingly become the jurisdiction of local and state authorities. In the second chapter I analyze the role of deportation risk in the location decision of potential Mexican migrants between 1998-2013. I first construct a novel measure of deportation risk at the U.S. division level using a representative survey of deported Mexican individuals. I then build a static model of migration that incorporates geographic variation in deportation risk, wages, and presence of ethnic enclaves to perform counterfactual deportation policies. I find that the geographic variation in deportation risk does not seem to have a significant effect on the location decision of Mexican migrants during the period of study. Conditional on migrating to the U.S., the location decision of migrants is primarily driven by the historical ethnic enclave of the migrant's source community and by wage considerations. A rich literature shows that early life conditions shape later life outcomes, including health and migration events. However, analyses of geographic disparities in mortality outcomes focus almost exclusively on contemporaneously measured geographic place (e.g., state of residence at death). The third chapter (coauthored with Jason Fletcher, Michal Engelman, Norman Johnson, Jahn Hakes, and Alberto Palloni) uses the Mortality Disparities in American Communities dataset to show that there are important differences in life expectancy measures calculated based on state of residence compared with state of birth. We show that regional inequality in life expectancy is higher based on life expectancies by state of birth. Finally, we explore how state-specific features of in-migration, out-migration, and non-migration together shape measures of mortality disparities by state (of residence), further demonstrating the difficulty of clearly interpreting these widely used measures.
By Moms, for Moms—Redefining Motherhood for a New Generation With This Is Motherhood, the cofounders and contributors of the Motherly online community present a collection of essays and practices to celebrate motherhood in all its complexity. Here you’ll find reflections on each phase of “the wild ride of motherhood,” including the soaring highs of meeting your new baby, the ground-shaking lows that make you doubt everything you’ve ever known, and all the beauty and pain in between. Each chapter closes with practices from Motherly’s team of wellness experts to help you define, clarify, process, and celebrate your journey. This book was created to inspire and guide you through some of the most miraculous and stressful milestones of your life, such as: • New Mama—get ready for the mysterious, unpredictable, and beautiful start to your new life as a mother • Firsts—each step is brand new to you and your baby . . . and a chance to discover your way to learn and love • Mental Load—even with the worries, the to-do lists, the midnight emergencies, you deserve time and attention, too • Village—how to find the support that’s all around you, because you aren’t meant to do this alone • Transformation—discover and embrace the powerful, loving, capable woman who’s been molded by motherhood There are many ways to get motherhood right. It’s not your mother’s path or your sister’s path or that seemingly-perfect mom from your kid’s preschool’s path. It’s yours. You get to define—and redefine along the way—your experience of motherhood. And you are not alone. Each essay in This Is Motherhood is a letter to you, from one mama to another, to remind you that your feelings are normal. That you’re doing an amazing job. That you’re stronger than you even realize. Most of all: You’ve got this, mama.
This book presents original ethnographic research into the connections between childcare, family lives and social policy in Wales.
We are the first generation in recent history to not know if our children will have a better life than us. Over the past thirty years, the dream of upward mobility and stable and securely paid employment has dissipated. This collection draws together insights from the disciplines of cultural studies, literary theory, psychoanalysis, psychosocial studies, social policy and sociology, in order to explore the complex and contested status of “the family” under neoliberalism. At one end of the spectrum, the intensification of work and the normalisation of long-hours working culture have undermined the time and energy available for private family life. At the other end, the fantasy of the nuclear family as a potential “haven in a heartless world” is rapidly unravelling, supplanted with a hypercompetitive, neo-traditionalist, mobile, neoliberal family seeking to capitalise on the uneven spread of resources in order to maximise the futures of its own children. As neoliberalism has always been split between socio-economic realities and the expectations of where we “should” be, we are always living with the anxiety of being left behind and the hope that the best is yet to come. The chapters in this collection signal the troubles of the neoliberal family: in particular, the gulf between the practical conditions of family life and the formation of new fantasies. The volume addresses the neoliberal family in a range of contexts: from the domestic, reproductive and bio-political regulation of family life, the representations of the neoliberal family on television and across social media, to the negotiation of family dynamics in maternal memoirs. The work provides a much-needed corrective to the critical emphasis on the macrostructures of the neoliberal world.