Integrating Motherhood and Employment: Evaluating the Impacts of US Workplace Breastfeeding Legislation

Integrating family and work responsibilities is a central issue for working mothers in high-income countries made easier by state-mandated workplace policies. In this study, we examine one such policy, workplace breastfeeding legislation, allowing mothers to express breast milk during work hours and its impact upon breastfeeding rates in the context of the United States (US). The US has one of the lowest rates of exclusive breastfeeding in the world. Only 14% of US mothers breastfeed their child exclusively for the first 6 months. In comparison to other high-income countries, the US has weak legislation protecting breastfeeding mothers at the workplace, for example, through workplace policies that guarantee working mothers facilities to express and store breast milk, with only 25 out of 50 states having such policy. Breastfeeding has been shown to be associated with many health benefits, and the US Surgeon General has issued a Call to Action for employers, researchers and government leaders to take on a commitment to increase and support breastfeeding and remove barriers that discourage breastfeeding such as those related to the workplace. We exploit variation, at state level, in the scope and timing of implementation of employment legislation that enable mothers to breastfeed or express breast milk during work hours, on breastfeeding rates. We use differences-indifferences methodology and data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics supplemented with the Child Development surveys over a period of 22 years from 1990-2011. We carefully control for other impacts on breastfeeding rates and for underlying trends in breastfeeding and female labour force participation such as employment. Our results show that breastfeeding laws have a positive and significant impact of up to a 1.04% increase on breastfeeding rates for treatment states. The applications of this study are relevant in informing policy and economic issues such as gender equality, economic development, workplace and family friend labour force polices, and healthcare policies.