Primary Submission Category: Difference in Differences, Synthetic Control, Methods for Panel and Longitudinal Data
Effect of Paid Sick Leave Policies on Child Health
Authors: Lila Basnet, Kanika Arora, George Wehby,
Presenting Author: Lila Basnet*
In the absence of the national paid leave policies for workers, paid sick leave and paid family leave are labor policies implemented by fifteen states and are being considered by several other states. These policies allow employees to take time off when required to take care of themselves or the health of family members without incurring income loss or job loss. The importance of paid leave is high considering the corresponding needs of children as even healthy children have substantial health needs for regular care. The utilization of preventive child health care services requires parents’ time to arrange visits to the service site. To examine the effect of paid sick leave policies on the utilization of health services, we identify the paid sick leave policies in each state and analyze data from the National Survey of Child Health from 2016 to 2023 for this study. Our outcome is the utilization of health services including dental visits, disease screening, and outpatient visits. Due to the heterogeneity of timing when policies were adopted, we used the Callaway-Sant’Anna staggered difference-in-differences approach. We estimate the effect of paid sick leave policies on the utilization of child health services and consider the validity of the causal assumptions involved in the model. This study will examine the effect of paid sick leave on the utilization of child health services and provide insights into the design and consideration of paid sick leave.