The Effects of Paid Maternity Leave on the Gender Gap: Reconciling Short and Long Run Impacts

Abstract

I assess the impact of fully paid maternity leave on leave taking, continued employment, and promotion by exploiting a sudden expansion of paid leave from 6 to 12 weeks in the United States Air Force and Army. I estimate impacts under regression discontinuity and difference in differences frameworks using administrative records covering mothers and fathers in the military for up to two years after birth. I find that the policy increases leave taking by 5 weeks, has minimal impacts on continued employment, and negative impacts on the likelihood of promotion. These results are absent return to work effects and provide a way to reconcile estimates of positive short run and negative long run impacts.