Paid family leave is an essential social policy that provides families with economic security while bonding with a new child. The United States has no federal policy on paid leave, providing only certain eligible employees up to 12 weeks unpaid, job-protected leave for family and medical reasons. For many workers, unpaid leave is a financially untenable situation. However, in lieu of federal action, a growing number of states have passed and implemented paid family leave laws over the last decade.
In the scientific literature, paid family leave has been linked to a broad range of health benefits for women and infants. These include increased likelihood of initiation and duration of breastfeeding, increased utilization of postpartum care, and decreased likelihood of postpartum depression. These associations have been observed across multiple research designs, including comparisons between individuals with and without access to paid leave, evaluations of outcomes before and after state-level policy implementation, and cross-sectional multi-state analyses. A systematic review from 2023 analyzed 45 quantitative studies from high-income countries to assess the effects of paid leave relative to unpaid leave on mental health outcomes. Overall, findings showed that mothers with access to paid leave experienced lower rates of postpartum depression, psychological distress, and burnout. Additionally, the review found that more generous policies of 2-3 months or longer conferred greater benefits.
However, questions remain as to the extent to which paid leave policies in the U.S. are equitable. Across states, not all policies provide robust employment protections or health insurance or have adequate wage replacement rates. Such policies can limit enrollment among workers with low wages. Some studies also find that the positive benefits of paid family leave policies are accrued mostly among White, middle-income parents, with lower or even null benefits among Black and Hispanic parents.
New Jersey’s 2020 paid family leave policy is one of the most progressive in the country, expanding on its 2009 policy to provide longer leave duration and higher wage replacement, as well as a more inclusive definition of family. This provides us with a unique opportunity to evaluate whether increasing the generosity of paid leave may close the socioeconomic gap on enrollment and whether New Jersey’s policy could reduce maternal and infant health disparities.