Welfare State Paper 1 Paid Family Leave copy

1
13
25
37
49
61
73
85
97
109
121
133
145
157
169
181
193
205
217
229
241
253
265
277
289
301
313
325
337
349
361
373
385
397
409
421
433
445
457
469
481
493
505
517
529
541
S R Larson Paid Family Leave Wyoming Prosperity
Employment rate among women (grey, left); Length of all paid family leave (green, right)
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
180
170
160
150
140
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Source: OECD Employment Database
As the length of benefits varies, there is no trend in maternal employment.
To further examine the possible influence of a paid leave program, Figure 3 reports data for
maternal employment and values for a Generosity Index from the same countries in 2015 (or
latest year available). 19 Once again, there is no correlation between the mother’s access to a paid
leave program and her ability to keep a job:
19 The index is constructed as follows. The length of leave permitted under all national programs in the
dataset – in this case 24 countries – are ranked by length. The longest permitted leave is given a value of
1, with the other national programs being given a value less than 1 after dividing their number of weeks
by the highest week number. For example, Estonia offers the longest leave, 146 weeks, while Sweden
offers 51.4 weeks. The Swedish “week value” is therefore 0.35. This number is then multiplied by that
country’s income replacement rate, or 0.61 in Sweden. The Swedish index value is therefore
0.35x0.61=0.215.
20