Effects of Care Leave and Family Social Policy: Spotlight on the United States

• Date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12293
• Author: Tracey Freiberg
• Published date: 01 September 2019

Effects of Care Leave and Family Social

Policy: Spotlight on the United States

By Tracey Freiberg*

absTracT. Consistent with Pope Francis’s efforts to eradicate social

exclusion, most countries in the world have already adopted care leave

policies in an effort to reduce the conflict between being an employee

and being a caregiver. Care leave policies allow workers time off for

family or for self-care. Historically, care leave policies such as maternity

leave are viewed as an employee benefit akin to short-term disability

leave, providing job-protected time off for new mothers. This study

reviews the literature of the short- and long-run economic and societal

effects of care leave policies globally, with a specific focus on care leave

policies in the United States. Care leave produces positive labor market

and health outcomes, including increases in leave taking, improvement

in replacement wages, improvements to profitability and employee

morale, increases in female workforce participation and continuity,

increases in birth weight, and decreases in infant mortality. Despite

positive effects, labor market inequalities such as decreases in female

labor market participation rates, gender wage gaps, and occupational

segregation are often promoted by care leave policies. The conflicted

findings in care leave research muddle the anticipated effects of paid

care leave but allow room for alternative policy recommendations.

Introduction

Work is defined as paid work and welfare policies that permit, encourage,

or discourage the decommodification of labor. (Lewis 1992)

The increased participation rates of women in the 20th and 21st cen-

turies have definitively shifted household income structures and insti-

gated a cultural change, thus establishing a more diverse workforce.

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 4 (September 2019).

DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12293

© 2019 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

*PhD Candidate in the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment at The

New School. Ms. Freiberg is an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Economics at the Peter J.

Tobin School of Business at St. John’s University. Professionally, she has over 10years

of experience in insurance, financial services, consulting, research, and academia.

1010 The American Journal of Economics and Sociology

In 2018, 48.4 percent, or approximately 1.35 billion, women over the

age of 15 were employed globally (International Labour Organization

2018). As the workforce became larger and more diverse, the needs

of workers expanded.

In 2019, modern firms employ a variety of compensation and bene-

fit plans to promote profitable and efficient businesses. Governments,

by contrast, enact policies and regulations that are intended to equal-

ize workers and ensure their right to work. Employee benefits and

policy interventions are a start in that direction. When governments

combat what Pope Francis calls an “economy of exclusion,” that does

not just mean eliminating barriers to participating in the economy. It

often means building pathways to facilitate and support participation.

For workers who also have significant roles as caretakers, this means

supporting their dual responsibilities. One pathway is care leave, a

social policy solution to help address a changing modern workforce

that is not incentivized by wages alone.1

Moving from an “economy of exclusion” to an inclusive economy,

as envisioned by Catholic social thought, means more than just elim-

inating the laws and structures that prevent full participation in the

economy. It often means providing support for participation. For ex-

ample, it is not enough to remove laws that prevent one group from

acquiring an education; an infrastructure must be built to provide a

high-quality education to those previously excluded. The dramatic

increase in women’s participation in the labor market started with re-

moving many barriers to women working, but new measures are still

required to provide for the caregiving roles that are a normal part of

living in a modern family.

For caretakers, care leave policies encompass the group of pol-

icies that offer time off to provide care for a family member or for

self-care.2

Such policies seek to act as an increase in compensa-

tion—incentivizing workers to raise productivity and, ultimately, to

increase profitability for the employer and the firm. As Gariety and

Shaffer (2001) explain, allowing time off to care for family members

increases employee productivity at work. Workers are incentivized by

more than just wages; other factors such as location of the job, hours

offered, and benefits are also important to job decisions (Manning

2003). Therefore, care leave, paid or unpaid, is expected to increase