Unintended Consequences of Maternity Leave Legislation: The Case of Colombia

We estimate the impact on female labor outcomes of the extension in maternity leave period from 12 to 14 weeks, an amendment to the Colombian labor law in 2011. To identify this impact, we compare labor market outcomes of different groups of individuals with women of child-bearing age. First we compared two groups of women with different fertility rates (low elasticity of substitution), finding that, as result of the extension, women in the high-fertility age group experience an increase in inactivity, informality, and self-employment. When comparing high-fertility age women with men in the same age group (high elasticity of substitution), we find that the extension increases the probability of unemployment, informality and self-employment and decreases wages of women compared with men.

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