Paid Caregiving Leave Policies and an Update on Paid Parental Leave

Paid leave policies are designed to help workers balance work with caregiving responsibilities, yet research has focused predominantly on parental leave while the literature on non-parental caregiving leave remains nascent. This chapter reviews the evidence on the impacts of paid family leave (PFL) and paid sick leave (PSL) policies, with a focus on non-childbirth-related caregiving. We begin with an overview of the prevalence and challenges of informal caregiving in the US and internationally, followed by a description of the current paid caregiving leave policy landscape. We then review evidence on the impact of these policies on leave take-up, labor market outcomes, caregiver health and well-being, employer outcomes, and utilization of formal care. We find that paid leave policies have successfully increased leave take-up and that PFL improves labor market outcomes for workers with caregiving responsibilities, without adversely affecting employers. There is also some suggestive evidence of improvements in caregivers’ mental health. We additionally provide an update of the paid parental leave literature since it was last reviewed by Rossin-Slater (2018), describing the latest evidence on maternal health, child health and development, parental labor market outcomes, and employer outcomes. We conclude by identifying key gaps in the literature, including the lack of research on the outcomes of (non-child) care recipients, limited evidence on employer responses, and the underexplored role of PSL in supporting caregiving needs.