BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM

In October 2011, Chile extended postnatal leave from 12 to 24 weeks for women contributing to the country’s social security system. The reform also introduced five days of paid paternity leave. A study published this year by economist Francisca Rojas-Ampuero tracks what happened to women’s employment in the fourteen years since.

Formal employment among eligible mothers rose by approximately 15 to 16 percent in the first three years after leave ended. The effect faded between years four and seven, not because it reversed, but because ineligible mothers caught up.

Who was eligible, and who wasn’t

The reform’s cutoff date created a useful comparison group. Mothers of children born on or after July 25, 2011, qualified for the full 84-day extension. Those whose children were born before May 2, 2011, were not eligible. Mothers born between those dates received a partial extension.

Rojas-Ampuero used this variation to estimate the reform’s effects: a regression discontinuity design for leave usage patterns, and a difference-in-differences model to track labor market outcomes over seven years.

Maternity leave substituted for other forms of absence

The sick leave data is telling. Before the reform, many Chilean mothers extended their time at home by claiming sick-child leave, mental health leave, or leave for pregnancy-related illness. After the reform, eligible mothers significantly reduced their use of these alternatives. Extended maternity leave replaced a patchwork of workarounds with a single, legitimate entitlement.

That means the pre-reform system wasn’t preventing extended absences. It was just making mothers work harder to arrange them. The reform simplified the path without meaningfully increasing total time away from work.

The effects were largest for the most vulnerable

Rojas-Ampuero found no significant differences in outcomes by marital status, age at birth, education level, or pre-birth wages. The variable that mattered most was tenure. Women with less than ten months of formal employment in the year before maternity leave gained more than those with stable work histories.

The effect was strongest in municipalities with limited childcare access. For mothers with thin labor market footing and few affordable care options, extended leave helped them stay in formal employment rather than leaving it.

A different result than high-income countries tend to produce

Maternity leave research in wealthy countries tends to find modest or null effects on long-term employment. Rojas-Ampuero’s results diverge, and the explanation is structural: limited childcare availability, weaker job protection, and higher labor market informality create different incentives for mothers deciding whether to return to formal work.

The Chilean reform was designed with those conditions in mind. Policymakers built it explicitly to address low maternal employment among lower-income mothers and compensate for thin childcare infrastructure. The data suggests it worked, at least for the three years where the evidence is clearest.

One caveat worth noting: the study only covers women already in the formal sector before childbirth, a group that’s better positioned than most to begin with. Whether the same effects would show up among informal or lower-income workers isn’t yet known.

Source study: Journal of Development Economics— Who benefits from a maternity leave extension? Evidence from Chile

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