Paid Parental Leave Policies and Infant Mortality Rates in OECD Countries: Policy Implications for the United States

Infant mortality is an important indicator of a nation's overall health and well‐being because of its association with education, availability and accessibility of health services, and income inequality. In this paper, we examine the effect of job‐protected paid parental leave on infant and post‐neonatal mortality rates in 19 OECD countries from 1960 to 2012. We utilize a generalized least squares model controlling for a host of variables traditionally examined in studies of infant mortality rates, as well as year fixed effects, country fixed effects, and country time trends. We find a statistically significant association between job‐protected paid parental leave and a reduction in both infant mortality rates and post‐neonatal mortality rates. The findings are particularly relevant for policymakers in the United States, the only industrialized democracy in the world that does not provide job‐protected paid parental leave to working women and men.