The Effects of California's Paid Family Leave Program on Mothers’ Leave‐Taking and Subsequent Labor Market Outcomes

This analysis uses March Current Population Survey data from 1999 to 2010 and a differences‐in‐differences approach to examine how California's first in the nation paid family leave (PFL) program affected leave‐taking by mothers following childbirth, as well as subsequent labor market outcomes. We obtain robust evidence that the California program doubled the overall use of maternity leave, increasing it from an average of three to six weeks for new mothers—with some evidence of particularly large growth for less advantaged groups. We also provide evidence that PFL increased the usual weekly work hours of employed mothers of 1‐ to 3‐year‐old children by 10 to 17 percent and that their wage incomes may have risen by a similar amount.     

Child Health in Elementary School Following California's Paid Family Leave Program

We evaluate changes in elementary school children health outcomes following the introduction of California's Paid Family Leave (PFL) program, which provided parents with paid time off following the birth of a child. Our health outcomes—overweight, ADHD, and hearing‐related problems—are characterized by diagnosis rates that only pick up during early elementary school. Moreover, our health outcomes have been found to be negatively linked with many potential implications of extended maternity leave—increased breastfeeding, prompt medical checkups at infancy, reduced prenatal stress, and reduced non‐parental care during infancy. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS) within a difference‐in‐differences framework, our results suggest improvements in health outcomes among California elementary school children following PFL's introduction. Furthermore, the improvements are driven by children from less advantaged backgrounds, which is consistent with the notion that California's PFL had the greatest effect on leave‐taking duration after childbirth mostly for less advantaged mothers who previously could not afford to take unpaid leave.     

The Effects of Paid Family Leave in California on Labor Market Outcomes

Using data from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY‐97), we examine the effects of California's paid family leave program (CA‐PFL) on mothers’ and fathers’ use of leave during the period surrounding child birth, and on the timing of mothers’ return to work, the probability of eventually returning to prechildbirth jobs, and subsequent labor market outcomes. We estimate multivariate difference‐in‐differences regression models that compare changes in the outcomes for new California parents before and after the enactment of CA‐PFL to those for corresponding parents in control states. Our results suggest that CA‐PFL raised leave use by almost five weeks for the average covered mother and two to three days for the corresponding father. Maternal leave‐taking appears to increase in the quarter before the birth and to extend through the two quarters after it. Paternal leave‐taking rises fairly quickly after the birth and is short‐lasting. Rights to paid leave are also associated with higher work and employment probabilities for mothers nine to 12 months after birth, probably because they increase job continuity among those with relatively weak labor force attachments. We also find positive effects of California's program on hours and weeks of work during their child's second year of life.     

Fathers,Families and Work: Putting ‘Working Fathers’ in the Picture

This article is a review of Fathers, Families and Work, one of a series of reports published as part of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)'s ‘Working Better’ programme. The article examines Fathers, Families and Work in the context of the wider conclusions and recommendations of the ‘Working Better’ programme and considers the extent to which these recommendations will translate into public policy. It concludes that there is a gap between parents' desire for both mothers and fathers to be involved in caring for children and the reality of long hours and inflexible workplaces that limits the time men can spend caring for children.     

Knowledge Sharing in a Third‐Party‐Governed Health and Human Services Network

The rapid growth of knowledge in disease diagnosis and treatment requires health service provider organizations to continuously learn and update their practices. However, little is known about knowledge sharing in service implementation networks governed by a network administrative organization (NAO). The author suggests that strong ties enhance knowledge sharing and that there is a contingent effect of third‐party ties. Two provider agencies’ common ties with the NAO may undermine knowledge sharing because of resource competition. In contrast, a dyad's common ties with a peer agency may boost knowledge sharing as a result of social cohesion. Finally, the author posits that third‐party ties moderate the relationship between strong ties and knowledge sharing. These hypotheses are examined in a mental health network. Quantitative network analysis confirms the strong tie and third‐party tie hypotheses and provides partial support for the moderating effect of third‐party ties. The implications for public management, including the implementation of HealthCare.gov , are discussed.     

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: The Family and Medical Leave Act as Retrenchment Policy

abstract This article discusses recent efforts by states to adopt paid family leave since the original passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993. In proposing their legislation, 21 of 26 states dropped the family component of the original law and, instead, reduced coverage to baby care or parental leave. I explore the potential policy implications of what appears to be a retrenchment of the FMLA, as it shifts from an emphasis on family (including care of elderly parents) to parental (baby care only). This discussion is particularly important in light of a growing aging population that will demand greater assistance from family caregivers who will most likely be in the workforce and in need of benefits such as family leave.     

Compulsory Voting and Parties’ Vote‐Seeking Strategies

I advance a theory about how compulsory voting affects the behavior of political parties. The theory suggests that parties will pivot toward programmatic vote‐seeking strategies and away from clientelistic tactics, such as vote buying, where voting is compulsory. I test my expectations in three separate studies, using several data sources and empirical approaches. In Study 1, cross‐national analyses show that parties behave more programmatically under compulsory voting and that vote buying is less common where voting is mandatory. In Study 2, synthetic control and difference‐in‐differences analyses show that a switch to compulsory voting in Thailand produced an increase in programmatic vote seeking. In Study 3, a list experiment conducted in tandem with a natural experiment shows that compulsory voting leads parties to rely less on vote‐buying tactics in Argentina. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings, which together are broadly supportive of my theoretical expectations.     

Child Poverty and Social Mobility: Taking the Measure of the Coalition's ‘New Approach’

Reviewing two of the latest reports by social mobility tsar, Alan Milburn and ‘social justice’ champion, Iain Duncan Smith, the article examines the politics and policy of the Coalition's fairness strategy and the jostling for position that is going on behind the scenes. Whilst continuing to pay lip service to the goal of ending child poverty, the government is seeking to redefine the problem, away from a narrow focus on relative low income. Beneath the rhetoric, the article highlights the close similarities between the ‘new’ and ‘old’ approaches, finding that the evidence behind the government's claims is unconvincing. Far from offering a ‘step‐change’ in provision, it concludes that in the new age of austerity the Coalition will struggle to make any positive progress on tackling poverty and improving the relative life chances of disadvantaged children.     

Taking Sides in Other People’s Elections: The Polarizing Effect of Foreign Intervention

What do voters think when outside powers become de facto participants in a country’s election? We conceptualize two types of foreign intervention: a partisan stance, where the outsider roots for a particular candidate slate, and a process stance, where outsiders support the democratic process. We theorize that a partisan outside message will polarize partisan actors domestically on the issue of appropriate relations with the outsiders: partisans who are supported will want closer relations with the outside power, and partisans who are opposed will favor more distant relations. A process message, in contrast, will have a moderating effect on voters’ attitudes. We present evidence of partisan polarization along those lines from a survey experiment we conducted in Lebanon in the wake of the 2009 parliamentary elections. We discuss the implications of our findings for future studies of how outsiders can encourage moderate electoral outcomes in democratizing states.     

‘No‐one likes us; we don't care’: ‘Dissident’ Irish Republicans and Mandates

The episodic dissident republican activity evident in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement has been accompanied by regular assertions from the police, politicians and commentators that dissidents have no backing. This article examines the historic importance of mandates and support for previous and contemporary republican armed campaigns. It explores whether violent republicans have ever enjoyed widespread support in Ireland and assesses the extent to which a lack of backing has precluded violent campaigns. The piece analyses the evidence regarding the lack of sympathy for current dissident violence, assessing the degree to which armed republicanism has reached a new level of isolation.     

Charter High Schools’ Effects on Long‐Term Attainment and Earnings

Since their inception in 1992, the number of charter schools has grown to more than 6,800 nationally, serving nearly three million students. Various studies have examined charter schools’ impacts on test scores, and a few have begun to examine longer‐term outcomes including graduation and college attendance. This paper is the first to estimate charter schools’ effects on earnings in adulthood, alongside effects on educational attainment. Using data from Florida, we first confirm previous research (Booker et al., 2011 ) that students attending charter high schools are more likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college. We then examine two longer‐term outcomes not previously studied in research on charter schools—college persistence and earnings. We find that students attending charter high schools are more likely to persist in college, and that in their mid‐20s they experience higher earnings.     

Decentralization,local governance and ‘recentralization’ in Africa

Although Many African states have pursued substantial decentralization reforms in the previous twenty years, many of these reforms are still experiencing problems in bringing about effective local governance. Often these problems grow from the difficulty in translating general reform initiatives into specific working arrangements at the local level that are effective in several key processes and operations. Specifically these include planning and capital investment, budgeting and fiscal management, personnel systems and management, and finance and revenue. A combination of central reluctance to relinquish authority in these key areas and the complexity of organizational redesign to support decentralization seem to explain these problems. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Financing Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness: Use of Interlocal Cost‐Sharing

Before this study, much of the research on interlocal collaboration has focused broadly on interlocal service agreements, of which interlocal cost‐sharing is but one dimension. This study is one of the first to examine the nature of interlocal cost‐sharing agreements for a specific (and critically important) functional area. A mail survey of Florida city and county finance officers finds that the most common interlocal cost‐sharing partnership is between local general purpose governments rather than with local special purpose governments. The strongest incentives for interlocal cost‐sharing are (1) inadequate funding for emergency management in a jurisdiction's capital budget, (2) the perceived inadequacy of federal and/or state homeland security funding, and (3) greater faith in horizontal (local‐to‐local) than vertical (federal‐state‐local) intergovernmental agreements. The research also highlights the importance of asking fiscal condition survey questions in a more functionally specific manner rather than as an “overall fiscal condition” question.     

‘Family Businesses Distributing America's Beverage’: managing government relations in the National Beer Wholesalers Association

Over the past decade, America's National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) has transformed itself from an organisation lacking much political influence into one of the most powerful interest groups on Capitol Hill. The NBWA has been described as “the toughest lobby you never heard of” (Birnbaum 1998: 148). Its strategy over this period provides an ideal case study of how to manage government relations within a trade association. It demonstrates the importance of establishing and implementing a measurable strategy, maximising the impact of a range of lobbying tools and leveraging the political environment to operate as effectively as possible. Senator Ben Nelson (Dem, Nebraska) has stated that, ‘NBWA is one of the most effective trade associations in Washington DC, with a staff that is savvy to the public relations and marketing strategies required to be influential on Capitol Hill’ (Nelson 2001). Indeed, the fact that the NBWA's government relations programme is so explicitly based upon marketing principles is unusual from a British perspective; even in the American context, the strategy is executed particularly effectively. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Family Leave Policies and Labor Market Segregation in Germany: Reinvention or Reform of the Male Breadwinner Model?1

abstract The historically dominant male breadwinner and female carer model in West Germany has resulted in comparably low female employment rates and a gender‐structured labor market. Since the 1970s, the decline of traditional patterns and sectors of male employment has been accompanied by the expansion of the female‐dominated service sector. Supplemented by women's higher educational attainment, a pluralism of household forms, and German unification, the result has been constant growth in female employment. With more working mothers, the question of combining work and family has provoked policy responses that, in West Germany, have mainly centered on family leave policies. In addressing the question of whether these policies have resulted in a more equitable sharing of paid and family work, this article presents longitudinal empirical data on the working patterns of women entitled to different forms of family leave. These show how changing regulations have led to the institutionalization of a “baby break” for younger women and to the promotion of labor market exclusion.     

Taking Others into Account: Self‐Interest and Fairness in Majority Decision Making

Research on the formal properties of democratic aggregation mechanisms has a long tradition in political science. Recent theoretical developments, however, show that in the discussion of normative contents of democratic decisions, the actual shape of preferences deserves just as much attention. However, our knowledge about the concrete motivations of individual behavior in democratic decisions is incomplete. Using laboratory experiments, this article examines the existence of social preferences in majority decisions. Contrary to earlier experiments of committee decision making, we develop a design that controls for the conditions of communication and the level of information between subjects. This allows us to comparatively test the predictive power of several theories. We find strong evidence that self‐interest and fairness motivate human behavior in majority decisions.     

‘There will be burning and a‐looting tonight’: The Social and Political Correlates of Law‐breaking

In the aftermath of the August 2011 riots, politicians and commentators offered a range of explanations for the social unrest and wanton violence. Drawing on survey and focus‐group data, this paper investigates those explanations by analysing how socio‐economic, normative and political factors shape contemporary attitudes towards law breaking in Britain. The paper finds that both economic deprivation and personal moral values help to explain attitudes toward illegal behaviour, but citizens’ mistrust of political leaders and their disengagement from public affairs are also an important factor. The findings suggest that politicians who want to provide moral leadership need to do so through their actions as well as their words.