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Work and breastfeeding decisions are jointly determined for higher socioeconomic status US mothers |
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| Authors: | Bidisha Mandal Brian E Roe Sara B Fein |
| Institution: | 1. School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University, PO Box 646210, Hulbert 103F, Pullman, WA, 99164, USA 2. Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, Ohio State University, 225 Agricultural Administration Building, 2120 Fyffe Road, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA 3. Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, 5100 Paint Branch Parkway, College Park, MD, 20740, USA |
| Abstract: | We study postpartum decisions about paid work and breastfeeding using a simultaneous equations model. For our sample of higher socioeconomic status mothers, we find a joint decision process for three sets of decisions modeled: work leave duration and duration of any, as well as of exclusive, breastfeeding, and daily work hours and daily breastfeedings at infant age 3 months. We find that returning to paid work 1 week earlier reduces any breastfeeding duration by about two-thirds of a week while extending breastfeeding by a week delays work participation by about one-third of a week. We find larger elasticities for decisions involving daily work hours and number of breastfeedings at 3 months than for work leave duration and any breastfeeding duration and the smallest elasticities for duration of exclusive breastfeeding and work leave. This marks the first study to find a joint decision-making process for postpartum work and breastfeeding decisions and suggests that, in addition to increased leave impacting breastfeeding behaviors, successful breastfeeding promotion policies can have nontrivial impacts on the US labor market. |
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