With Paid Leave, Gates Foundation Says There Can Be Too Much of a Good Thing

In countries with very long leaves, Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn at Cornell found, women are more likely to work, but they are also more likely to be in dead-end jobs than women in the United States. Claudia Olivetti at Boston College and Barbara Petrongolo at Queen Mary University of London found little evidence that extended leaves had a positive effect on women’s employment or earnings — but found that subsidized child care and preschool did. Research on paid leave in California has found that short leaves have a neutral or positive effect on employers, but the effect of long leaves on U.S. employers is unknown .

Source: www.nytimes.com