Integrating motherhood and employment: a 22-year analysis investigating
impacts of US workplace breastfeeding policy
impacts of US workplace breastfeeding policy
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Author(s)
Hauck, Katharina
Miraldo, Marisa
Singh, Surya
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The United States has one of the lowest exclusive breastfeeding rates among high-income countries. Most experts agree that there is a lack of mother-friendly workplace policies compared to other countries. Since 1995, 25 states have implemented workplace breastfeeding legislation allowing mothers to express and store breast milk in the workplace. There is heterogeneity in policy enforceability where 17 states have weak enforceability while eight states have strict enforceability and require employers to offer provisions to breastfeed at the workplace. Using difference-in-differences methods, we examine the impact of this policy on state-level breastfeeding rates and assess how that impact differs with policy enforceability. We use data from the Centers for Disease Control on breastfeeding, supplementing with socio-economic data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Current Population Survey, the US Census Bureau and several other datasets over 22 years from 1990 to 2011. We find that states with legislation experienced a 2.3-percentage point increase in breastfeeding rates compared to states without legislation while states with weak enforceability experienced a 3.1-percentage point increase compared to states without legislation. We also find that policies do not start to have an impact until 1–2 years after they were signed into law. Considering the recent assault on breastfeeding from the current administration, our study is a timely and important contribution that strengthens the evidence base for the health benefits of workplace breastfeeding policies.
Date Issued
2020-08-01
Date Acceptance
2020-04-01
Citation
Social Science and Medicine – Population Health, 2020, 11
ISSN
2352-8273
Publisher
Elsevier
Journal / Book Title
Social Science and Medicine – Population Health
Volume
11
Copyright Statement
© 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Sponsor
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Grant Number
MR/R015600/1
Subjects
1117 Public Health and Health Services
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 100580
Date Publish Online
2020-04-11