ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2020
The effect of California's paid family leave policy on parent health: A quasi-experimental study.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The impact of paid family leave on parent and infant health outcomes: a systematic review of quasi-experimental research.BMC public health · 2026Pooled it
- Preventing depression in high-income countries-A systematic review of studies evaluating change in social determinants.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Impacts of Paid Family Leave on Perinatal Health: A Nationwide Quasi-Experimental Study.Pediatrics · 2026Article
- Access to employer-supported paternity leave and workers' self-rated mental health - United States, 2024.Work (Reading, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Impact of paternity leave on the health of fathers and their families: a scoping review protocol.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Citizenship Status and Race/Ethnicity: Inequities in Access to Paid Family and Medical Leave and Workplace Flexibility.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- More than Snuggles: The Effect of Paid Family Leave on Infant Maltreatment.Child maltreatment · 2026Article
- Effects of US state paid family leave policies on perinatal and postpartum health: a quasi-experimental analysis.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Effects of State Paid Family Leave Policies on Preventing Household Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in Early Childhood in the United States, 2011-2019.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2025Article
- Interventions to address inequities in infant mortality and morbidity in the NICU and beyond: A focus on the mother-infant dyad.Seminars in perinatology · 2025Review
- The fundamental importance of social insurance for health equity.Health affairs scholar · 2025Article
- Invited commentary: policies that support working parents and gender health equity-needed research and methodological challenges.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Methods Used to Evaluate the Health Effects of Social Policies: A Systematic Review.Current epidemiology reports · 2025Article
- Association of Maternity Leave Characteristics and Postpartum Depressive Symptoms among Women in New York.Maternal and child health journal · 2024Article
- Intersection of adverse childhood experiences, suicide and overdose prevention.Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention · 2024Review
- Paid Leave Mandates and Care for Older Parents.The Milbank quarterly · 2024Article
- Transformational narrative changes as a community-level approach to the prevention of adverse childhood experiences and substance use.American journal of community psychology · 2024Article
- The Impacts of New York State's Paid Family Leave Policy on Parents' Sleep and Exercise.Maternal and child health journal · 2024Article
- The effect on women's health of extending parental leave: a quasi-experimental registry-based cohort study.International journal of epidemiology · 2023Article
- New York State's Paid Family Leave Program is Associated with More Equitable and Increased Use of Paid Leave Following Childbirth.Maternal and child health journal · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The U.S. is the only high-income country without a national paid family leave (PFL) policy. While a handful of U.S. states have implemented PFL policies in recent years, there are few studies that examine the effects of these policies on health. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that California's PFL policy-implemented in 2004-improved parent health outcomes. Data were drawn from the 1993-2017 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a large diverse national cohort study of U.S. families (N = 6,690). We used detailed longitudinal sociodemographic information about study participants and a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences analytic technique to examine the effects of California's PFL policy on families who were likely eligible for the paid leave, while accounting for underlying trends in these outcomes among states that did not implement PFL policies in this period. Outcomes included self-rated health, psychological distress, overweight and obesity, and alcohol use. We found improvements in self-rated health and psychological distress, as well as decreased likelihood of being overweight and reduced alcohol consumption. Improvements in health status and psychological distress were greater for mothers, and reductions in alcohol use were greater for fathers. Results were robust to alternative specifications. These findings suggest that California's PFL policy had positive impacts on several health outcomes, providing timely evidence to inform ongoing policy discussions at the federal and state levels. Future studies should examine the effects of more recently implemented state and local PFL policies to determine whether variation in policy implementation and generosity affects outcomes.
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