Maternity leave in Russia: policies and effects on labor market transitions and childbearing

Brienna Perelli-Harris, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Theodore P. Gerber, University of Wisconsin at Madison

This study focuses on maternity leave in Russia during a period of rapid social and economic change. By analyzing retrospective employment and reproductive histories from 1985-2000, we examine to what extent maternity leave led to an increase in second birth rates or influenced women’s labor market transitions. The results show that women on maternity leave were one-third less likely to quit employment and nearly twice as likely to change jobs compared to women who were currently working. In the post-Soviet period, women on maternity leave had a hazard of reentering employment twice as high as those who were unemployed and a hazard of layoff of only about one-third of otherwise similar women who were actively working. Women who took maternity leave also had higher second conception rates. Thus, maternity leave provided women with a way to maintain a foothold in the labor force and led to higher fertility.