New York State's Paid Family Leave Program and Children's Health Care Use

Prior research has linked paid family leave programs with improvements in maternal and infant health. This study assessed changes in children's health care use following the implementation of New York State's Paid Family Leave Program (NYSPFL) and whether these changes vary by socioeconomic status or the presence of children with chronic health conditions in the home.

We used difference-in-differences (DD) and synthetic control method (SCM) approaches with data from the 2016-19 waves of the National Survey of Children's Health (n ∼24,000) to estimate the plausibly causal effects of NYSPFL on the health care use of children under age 18. We compared NYS residents to residents in states that implemented paid family leave after 2019.

SCM analyses indicate a 3.3 percentage point (-16%) reduction in emergency department visits among children aged 0 to 17 following NYSPFL implementation; findings were similar in the DD models but not significant (-2.3pp; 95% confidence interval, -0.092, 0.061). DD models found large reductions in delays of necessary health care among parents whose children had chronic conditions, but not among the full sample.

Findings suggest that state paid family leave programs support families' obtaining necessary health care for children with chronic conditions and reduce emergency department visits among families with children across the age spectrum.