Too Little, Too Weak? Paid Parental Leaves in Philippine Collective Bargaining Agreements

Abstract

When statutory work–family entitlements are deemed insufficient, workers often rely on collective bargaining to secure better terms. However, the extent to which unions can deliver higher than statutory benefits remains underexplored, especially in developing countries with decentralized bargaining systems and low union salience. Bridging this gap and drawing on a novel dataset covering all private-sector collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) in the Philippines (2016–2021), this article examines the dynamics and embedding of maternity and paternity leave provisions, or paid parental leaves (PPLs) collectively, focusing on three plausible drivers: leaders’ gender, competing wage provisions and changing policy-related opportunity structures. I specifically test whether female leadership and wage increase provisions ‘crowd in’ PPLs and assess how a 2019 maternity leave reform, which expanded statutory maternity leave entitlements from 8 to 15 weeks, affected PPL inclusion using two identification strategies: a pre–post comparison of multi-plant ultimate parent entities (UPEs) and a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) design. Results suggest that 56% of CBAs contain reinforcing provisions that merely restate statutory entitlements, whereas only 5% include augmenting provisions that expand them. Neither wage increases nor the 2019 reform crowd out PPLs. Instead, wage increase provisions, both at the extensive and intensive margin, are associated with a higher probability of PPL inclusion. Semi-structured interviews with union leaders and negotiators support a bounded augmentation hypothesis such that in contexts where enforcement of statutory rights is perceived as weak, redundancy operates as a functional deterrent to non-compliance.