The Impact Of Paid Leaves On New Mothers In OECD Nations

Research Questions

The employee force that is existent throughout the world require leaves and holidays in order to take some rest and get their mind of the job and refresh themselves. The employees even require leaves due to health issues and therefore it is the responsibility of the management of the companies to construct plans with the help of which the employees would be receiving a definite number of leaves within a particular year (Ruhm, 2017). The women workforce has been increasing with the advent of time and additional leaves are given to them as well during the pregnancy and even for new mothers. The employees would even get motivated if certain leaves would have been paid leaves. There are very few women globally who have the access to have family leaves and even very few of them have the benefit of having paid leaves. This has been an issue due to the increased participation of the labour force and rise in the single parent family and the innumerable economic benefits and potential health that is given by the family health to the children and their mothers who are even employees (Baum, & Ruhm 2016). There are several countries that have federal policies related to the paid leave to the new mothers and various countries have these leaves as unpaid as well. This paper has specifically concentrated on the impact of paid leaves on the new mothers in the OECD nations and therefore focus has been given on OECD nations like USA, United Kingdom, Spain etc in order to have a clear idea about the what is the impact on the paid leaves and the actions that have been taken in order to resolve any issues that are persistent. 

New mothers require leaves more significantly than any other employees as during this time the mother has to take care of their young children and even handle their own health. This research paper has looked to evaluate the impact of paid leaves on the new mothers especially in the OECD nations and thereby the organizations operating in the OECD nations would have an idea about the impact and the actions that can be taken with the help of which the new mothers can be motivated. The survey data has addresses that there are various coverage but the previous researches are ineffective in order to explain the leave policies on the real incidence of the leave taking among the women employees. There has been very few researches on the date of incorporation of the impact of the paid family leave policies in OECD nations as these policies are quite new (Jou et al., 2017). The paper therefore tries to address the impact of leaves and the actual incidence of the paid leaves on the new mothers. It would even try to assess the impact of the other factors that can have an influence on the decision of the women employees to apply for a leave after their child birth on the aspect that she takes a leave due to the non-financial and financial issues and the characteristics of the employment. The leaves play a vital role in the mind of the employees and paid leaves given to the new mothers can improve their operational efficiency after they join their organization post their leave (Avendano et al., 2015). The results of this paper will be helpful for a developing literature in the impacts of the leave policies on the leave taking attitude and thereby provide evidence of their positive impacts. This would recommend that other countries and states can incorporate the paid leave policies. The outcome of this paper would have the ability to inform policies that is constructed to give the women with the assistance they require to care and work for their families.

The Importance of Leaves for Employees

The aim and the objective of the research address the process and the factors that would be taken into consideration in order to come out with an answer that would appropriate for the paper. The research aims and objectives of the paper are as follows:

• Assess the impact of the other factors that potentially have an influence on the decision of a woman to take a leave after the child birth
• Assess the financial and the non-financial issues, the employment features, the number of child she has and the demographic features of the employees.  

This section of the paper has therefore looked to assess the factor that is associated to paid leaves. The concern about paid leaves is a concerning matter for most of the nations and therefore assessments have been taken with the help of which the company is able to construct policies related to paid leaves. The concern for this research paper has been impact of paid leaves among the new mothers and so a critical level of assessments have been taken with the help of which an understanding about the impact of paid leaves among the new mothers can be understood. This section even determines the problem statement of the research and even constructs the research aims and objectives and thereby is assisting in taking the research forward. The research question is even constructed with the help of which an understanding of the related variables can be understood. 

This section of the paper tries to assess what other researchers have recommended in accordance to the previous researches to the similar topics. The assessment of the previous researches will be helpful in understanding the impact of paid leaves on the new mothers. This report hence goes forward according to the ongoing and previous research on the parental leaves in the low, middle and higher income nations. The report even moves ahead on the new and innovative initiatives in order to assess all the relevant and precise data in accordance to the length of the paid families and the paid leaves on the new mothers among several nations that consists of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with the assistance of in-depth assessment in accordance to the tenure of the leave that would be suitable for the health of the infant and the health of the mother distinctively (Adema et al., 2015). The paper would even undertake a systematic overview of the social, health and economic effects of the paid leaves for the new mothers in OECD which vastly assesses how the leave availability had an impact on the outcome of the health. With the help of the assessments, this report is able to provide a summary of the evidences for whether the paid leaves can enhance the child and health of the new mothers.

Motivation Behind the Study

Anxo, & Ericson (2015) has cited that longer level of maternal leaves have the ability to diminish the level of infant mortality in various nations within all the levels of income. Currie, & Rossin?Slater (2015) discovered that each extra month of the maternity leave that is paid in nature are related to fall in the death of the infants. The fall in the level of infant mortality related to the rise in the tenure of the paid maternity leaves were focused on the period that is known as post-neonatal. These results are dependable with the earlier researches from the OECD nations and this has been discovered to be a relationship among the substantial paid leave regulations and policies and lower level of infant mortality.

The two processes with the help of which paid leave can be lower than the lower level of mortality are in this sense rising the duration and the initiation of taking care of their infants and this has been one of the most efficient interventions of the infant health and thereby assisting the ability of the mothers to make sure that their children receives vital immunizations and other post-natal cares (Goodman, 2017).

The studies that have been undertaken it is seen that countries that have higher income individuals recommend that more substantial paid leaves are related with the increased rates of the immunizations that are one time. In a longitudinal examination of the OECD nations, Heymann et al., (2017) have discovered no statistically vital association among the maternal leave availability that looks for the job secured paid leaves and the leaves that are unpaid and the rates of immunization within the initial years. There has been a positive relationship among the fact that paid leaves can have an impact on the new mothers as it is seen that the mother can increase their rate of immunization for their children.

The substantial level of employment and benign working atmosphere is the basis for health and is the main theme for the productive and full employment and attired work for all men and women. The reliable level of employment with a sufficient amount of wage that often provides the most effective course out of the poverty and aids the families to meet their basic needs in an effective manner. Kalb, (2017) has expressed that paid leaves has been related to the rise in the earnings of new mothers and their long term connexion to the employment force. Kaufman, (2017) discovered that maternity leave availability was related with the rise in the salaries for around 5 years among the mothers who have returned to work after a certain period of time after their child birth in the OECD nations. Kerr, (2016) discovered that the incorporation of the 6 weeks of parental paid leave that complemented the 14 weeks for the post-birth leaves that is available to the mothers and this had a very little impact on the earnings of the mothers, experience of work and the rate of employment.

Previous Research on Family Leaves and Policies

A huge percentage of children in the OECD nations currently have been living in households where all their parents are working. This transformation is mainly due to two factors and they are the rise in the number of women especially mothers in the employment force and growth in the number of families that is controlled by a single parent. The participation of the labour force has risen more significantly among women who have children under the age of one year (Mark Curtis et al., 2016). There has been a significant rise in the single parent family and past researches has discovered that male employees take fewer leaves than women and therefore a rise in the labour force participation of women has not counter balanced by a rise in the amount of leave taken by the men. These patterns even indicate that very few families are existent in which one parent is ready to stay at home and thereby generating the demand to generate policies that permits the parents to efficiently combine their family and work (Bartel et al., 2016). The family leave can have numerous optimistic impacts on women and their children. The leaves are able to provide time for the women employees to recover from the childbirth and even establish a connection with their new born child. The studies have even indicated that maternity leaves have been able to enhance the duration and the initiation of breastfeeding, increase the potentiality that the new-born will receive the essential vaccinations and reduce the level of infant mortality. 

There has been very few researches till the current period assessing the impacts of the federal and state family leave policies in various countries and the results that have been undertaken are mixed (Schönberg, & Ludsteck 2014). The researchers have investigated that the impacts of the government leave strategies on the length and incidence of leave taking and their impacts on the employment of the women, earnings and the continuation of the job after their leave.

There have been numerous researches that have taken the benefit of the natural trials established by the differentiation in the leave laws among the states in order to look into the effect of state laws and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) on the behaviour of leave taking. Dahl et al., (2016) have employed a difference in difference methodology in order to investigate the impact of leave legislation on the incidence of leave taking among women and in which many states have increased the liberality of the leave laws and implementation of FMLA.

The Impact of Paid Leaves on Maternal and Child Health

Hewitt et al., (2017) have disclosed no crucial impact of the federal and state leave legislation in the maternal employment results. There have been certain assessments that have been unable to identify the impact of leave laws in the maternal incomes but Carneiro et al., (2015) have discovered that FMLA had a vital negative impact on the salary of the women based on the data from various sources. The impact of leave legislation on the continuation of the job has even been investigated. 

This section of the paper looks to discover the most suitable process with the help of which the data required by the researcher can be collected. The methodology of the research explains the process of gathering the data and the method of assessing the same with the help of relevant outcome for the topic can be attained.

The research philosophy is a conviction about the process with the help of which the data about the results can be gathered, assessed and utilised. The word epistemology explains what is true in an opposition to the doxology that covers the several research approaches and philosophies. The key philosophies consist of interpretivism, pragmatism, realism and positivism (Adema et al., 2016). This paper therefore looks to make use of the positivism philosophy as this paper would try to explain the impact of paid leaves and their incidence on the new mothers who are employed.

The research approach explains the method that has been used by the researcher in order to collect the data and the type of data that has been used in order to undertake the research in an orderly and effective manner. The researcher has therefore exploited qualitative data and qualitative data analysis with the help of which the information related to paid leaves on new mothers can be identified. The source of the data associated with the topic has been gathered from Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) which is the hub of collection information and facts regarding any information associated with Australia. The figures associated to paid leaves have been sourced organizational associated data from ABS and the premium version of the data could not be attained due to the issues related to the accessing of the data. Data has even been collected from the OECD family database website.     

The research design explains the format and the style that would be used for the collection of the kind of data that is ideal for this paper. There are three kinds of research designs namely exploratory, descriptive and explanatory research design that is available to the researcher. The use of the design is dependent on the research topic and the process that would be undertaken by the researcher (Arora, & Wolf 2018). In this paper, the researcher has undertaken the descriptive research design as the paper provides an explanation of the variables that are associated with the topic and thereby makes the research results effective.

Employment and Earnings of New Mothers

The data associated with this paper is collected assessing the various secondary sources that are available to the researcher. The secondary sources are inclusive of the several journals and internet sources with the help of which annual report about the paid leaves among the OECD nations can be understood. The researcher has even gathered such data by taking help of several websites with the help of which the precise data can be gathered and specific results can be attained with the help of which the research can be concluded in an effective manner. This data can be helpful for the researcher to undertake the research forward.   

The data that is gathered by taking help of the secondary data and these data are assessed by taking help of the statistical tools that are used in order to discover the result that is appropriate for this research paper. 

This section of the paper would try to evaluate and assess the data that has been collected from the selected resources. There have been various issues that have been recognised in accordance to this paper and all these aspects that have been observed with the help of the secondary data can be used to undertake an analysis and discussion of the research issues with the help of which this paper can be completed.   

There are six various developments that can be assessed in accordance to paid leaves and in this scenario a similar recognition can be undertaken. In order to make the things this precise and strong, the researcher has looked to concentrate the reforms that have taken place in the paid leaves. The level of discontinuity that arises from the changes that is being contingent to the rate of birth of the child. The parents whose children have been born after 1^st April 1992 are eligible to receive 35 weeks of the parental leave and the ones within child who are over the cut-off are to receive 32 weeks of leave (Nandi et al., 2016).  The mitigated form of the framework for the regression discontinuity design can be incorporated by taking assistance of the equation:

y = α + 1[t ≥ c](gl(t − c) + λ) + 1[t<c]gr(c − t) + e

In this equation, y is the precise outcome of the variable, t is seen to be the date of birth of the child and c is seen to be the cut-off date and e is the error term. The coefficient is the intention to look into the impact of the changes on the results where the changes explains the rise in the maximum number of weeks a mother can take for paid leaves. In order to attain an aggregate impact of the additional weeks of the paid leaves, the coefficients requires to be scaled with the assistance of the jumps in taking the parental leave during the cut-off from the initial stage of the Regression Discontinuity regression.

Participation of Women in the Labour Force and Single Parent Families

The validation of the Regression Discontinuity design needs that the individuals may not be able to operate the variable chosen in the paper, which is the date of birth of the child. If the birth date is not timed in the answer to the changes the average distribution of the variables which should be sustainable around the date of cut-off (Rossin-Slater, 2015). There is less amount of opportunity in order to time the conception strategically as the date of incorporation for the changes have been declared in an advance of less than the nine months.

This section of correlation tries to assess the relationship among the length in the weeks and the full rate in the equal payments for the paid leaves for the new mothers. The data has been obtained for ten countries and have been helpful in recognising the issues that have been pertinent to the topic. The correlation calculation has been given as follows:

	Length in Weeks	Full Rate Equivalent in payments
Length in Weeks	1
Full Rate Equivalent in payments	0.192177297	1
MSE	2.688308997

The figures indicate for length in week and full rate of equivalent payments expresses that the value is positively correlated but is close to 0 indicating that there is a rise in the equivalent payments with the effective leave in the length in the weeks.

The mean squared error or the mean squared deviation which is an estimator to the method has a value of 2.688308997 and this indicates that the paid leaves have an impact on the new mothers as the figures indicate that length in the leaves in a weak has an impact on the full rate of the equivalent payments.    

The results that have been gathered needs to be in line with the variables that have been explained in the literature review. It is seen that variables that have been explained are even assessed in the result section and it is seen that paid parental leave is very much seen in the employees who are new mothers as the mean and the standard deviation that has been revealed indicates the same. The relevance of the regression discontinuity design is even able to explain the relevance of the paid leave policies and have incomes and the earnings related to the employee as well so that they are able to relate with the paid leaves as well. Therefore, it is seen that paid leaves does have significant amount of impact on the incidence of the new mothers and they tend to take leaves after their child birth and the leaves are dependent on the policies framed and the income of the employees.

Positive Impacts of Paid Leaves on the Health of New Mothers and their Children

 The results that have been collected from the various analytical mechanisms indicate that all the variables are directly related to each to other and have a direct impact on the incidence on the new mothers with respect to the paid leaves. 

Conclusion and Recommendation

Conclusion (Connection with the aims and objectives)

This paper has been constructed in order to have an idea about how the impact of paid leave have an incidence on the new mothers. The previous researches have indicated that paid leaves have a key role to play in the mind-set of the employees who are new mothers. The question that was existent was to figure out the variables that are related with paid leaves. It is seen that government policies and hours worked in the previous year can determine the amount of paid leaves an employee is entitled to. The other variables that have been considered have their significance but they do not possess that much impact as the ones discussed above. In accordance to the research aims and objectives, it is seen that the results that have been obtained is able to connect with them as the results have been indicative of the fact that earnings, and the factors that have an impact on the paid leaves are able to influence the new mothers. The data that was assessed were collected with the research objectives and the collected data has been able to provide answers that are suitable to the results. Hence, the paper suggests that paid leaves have an impact on the incidence of the new mothers.

Every research paper has certain flaws in accordance to which recommendations can be given with the help of which the future researches can be improved and the nations and the government can take actions with the help of which the issues related to paid leaves can be improved. The government should construct effective paid leaves plans for the new mothers with the help of which the new mothers can balance their family and professional live. The companies as well as the government can initiate work from home facilities for the new mothers with the help of which the mothers can work from home and even take care of their new-born baby. The companies should while providing paid leaves should look to take care of the previous year hours worked with the help of which the employees who are deserving can receive such leaves.

Policy Implications of Paid Leaves for Women Employees and their Families

This research paper contains certain restrictions and limitations as well. The limitations that are associated with this paper involves the shortage of time due to which the researcher has been unable to explore various areas and segments and therefore have not been able to collect the level of data that was essential for a much effective study. The other limitation has been the financial factor as shortage of cash has restricted the researcher from making use of techniques that would provide much effective results. The absence of such restrictions could have the research paper even more effective and precise.   

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