Parenting Journal · Volume 1 · Issue 5 · Licensed source edition
Evaluating the Effect of San Francisco’s Paid Parental Leave Ordinance on Birth Outcomes
Originally published 2022-09-22 · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) · DOI 10.3390/ijerph191911962 ↗
Working-family evidence
Work, care and the whole person.
Tests a private-sector paid-leave ordinance against birth outcomes and retains its null results, modeling honest evaluation of an appealing family-policy promise.
Directly examines work and family life, parenting, caregiving or employment policies for families.
Editorial reading guide · Trust
Which outcomes did paid leave improve—and which did this study not find?
Tests a private-sector paid-leave ordinance against birth outcomes and retains its null results, modeling honest evaluation of an appealing family-policy promise.
Study context
1,420,781 linked California birth and hospital records from 2013–2018 comparing San Francisco and control counties.
Age / stage: Birthing people and newborns.
Read with three questions
- How were births classified as exposed to San Francisco’s ordinance?
- What did the study find for preterm birth and low birth weight overall and across subgroups?
- Why might a postnatal policy have limited effects on outcomes established before birth?
Keep the limits in view
Difference-in-differences depends on comparison assumptions and policy exposure is inferred from place and work status; null birth-outcome results do not settle effects on other outcomes.
The text below is the original article’s licensed repository edition. Its wording is not rewritten. Use the Paper Agent beside the text to locate evidence; open the source for figures, tables and complete context.
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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.
Deborah Karasek; Sarah Raifman; William H Dow; Rita Hamad; Julia M Goodman (2022). Evaluating the Effect of San Francisco’s Paid Parental Leave Ordinance on Birth Outcomes International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911962
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.