Labor Market Outcomes Under State Paid Family Leave: A Multistate Analysis

Abstract

We estimate the labor market effects of state paid family leave (PFL) using CPS ASEC data from 1995 through 2024 and a cell-level staggered difference-in-differences design. PFL raises young women's labor force participation by 2.25 percentage points. The gain is concentrated among women with an own child under age 5, for whom participation rises by 3.76 percentage points. Among young women overall, unconditional weekly hours rise by 0.54 h. Young fathers of children under age 5 show a 1.59 percentage point participation gain. The young women's participation result is robust to a placebo permutation test, to leaving out any single treated state, and to a pre-policy balance check consistent with parallel pre-trends.