Parenting Journal · Volume 1 · Issue 5 · Licensed source edition
The impact of paid family leave on parent and infant health outcomes: a systematic review of quasi-experimental research
Originally published 2026-07-14 · BMC Public Health
BMC · DOI 10.1186/s12889-026-27709-2 ↗
Working-family evidence
Work, care and the whole person.
Synthesizes quasi-experimental evidence on paid leave and family health while preserving differences in outcomes and the review’s concern about population inequities.
Directly examines work and family life, parenting, caregiving or employment policies for families.
Editorial reading guide · Trust
How strong is the research behind our paid-family-leave commitment?
Synthesizes quasi-experimental evidence on paid leave and family health while preserving differences in outcomes and the review’s concern about population inequities.
Study context
US state paid-family-leave evaluations comparing states with and without policies.
Age / stage: Birthing and non-birthing parents and infants.
Read with three questions
- Which state-policy comparisons met the review’s quasi-experimental criteria?
- Which outcomes were measured for birthing parents, partners and infants?
- Where do heterogeneous policies and social identities limit a single employer-wide promise?
Keep the limits in view
A narrative synthesis combines heterogeneous policy designs and outcome measures; state-level evaluations do not isolate the effect of any one employer benefit.
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Original authorship, publication date, journal and DOI are preserved. This issue’s TRICK placement and reading questions are editorial additions, not claims made by the original authors.
Laura Hergenrother; Sara Honaker; Meghan Shanahan (2026). The impact of paid family leave on parent and infant health outcomes: a systematic review of quasi-experimental research BMC Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-026-27709-2
Permissions checked against the saved article notice; repository publication notices screened 2026-11-05. This is not a new peer-review decision. The source authors and publishers are not represented as endorsing this issue.