Maternity-Leave, Intrahousehold Allocations and Child Health: Evidence from Brazilian Data

Marcos A. Rangel, University of Chicago and Universidade de São Paulo

The present article explores changes in maternity-leave rights among Brazilian mothers in order to investigate the role of parental (time and monetary) investments on health outcomes for their children. At the end of 1988, the legal duration of leaves was increased from roughly 3 months to 4 months. Most importantly, job protection and full compensation were introduced into the regulations. Many working mothers were thereby provided with an opportunity to, if not significantly extend the period they remained at home post-birth, increase income and job-security within their households. Such introduction of new regulations allows researchers to study “very similar” women having children in neighboring months under starkly different maternity leave policy regimes. This provides a source of exogenous variation in the exposure to maternal care, and income security for a wide spectrum of children.