Journal
SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE
Volume 132, Issue -, Pages 45-53Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.02.037
Keywords
Europe; Maternity leave; Depression; Social policy; Aging; Mental health; International
Funding
- National Institute on Aging [R01AG040248, R01AG037398]
- European Research Council (ERC) [263684]
- McArthur Foundation Research Network on Ageing
- European Commission [QLK6-CT-2001-00360, RII-CT-2006-062193, CIT5- CT-2005-028857, CIT4-CT-2006-028812, 211909, 227822, 261982]
- U.S. National Institute on Aging [U01 AG09740-13S2, P01 AG005842, P01 AG08291, P30 AG12815, R21 AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG BSR06-11, OGHA 04-064]
- German Ministry of Education and Research
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This paper examines whether maternity leave policies have an effect on women's mental health in older age. We link data for women aged 50 years and above from countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to data on maternity leave legislation from 1960 onwards. We use a difference-in-differences approach that exploits changes over time within countries in the duration and compensation of maternity leave benefits, linked to the year women were giving birth to their first child at age 16 to 25. We compare late-life depressive symptom scores (measured with a 12-item version of the Euro-D scale) of mothers who were in employment in the period around the birth of their first child to depression scores of mothers who were not in employment in the period surrounding the birth of a first child, and therefore did not benefit directly from maternity leave benefits. Our findings suggest that a more generous maternity leave during the birth of a first child is associated with a reduced score of 0.38 points in the Euro-D depressive symptom scale in old age. Crown Copyright (c) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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