Public Policies, Women's Employment after Childbearing, and Child Well-Being

In this paper, we consider three U. S. public policies that potentially influence the work decisions of mothers of infants-parental leave laws, exemptions from welfare work requirements, and child care subsidies for low-income families. We estimate the effects of these policies on the timing of work participation after birth, and on a range of outcomes in the subsequent four years, using a group difference-in-difference technique suitable for analysis of cross-sectional data. We find that the three policies affect early maternal work participation, but obtain no evidence of significant consequences for child well-being.