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WORK OUTPUT 1

My Research problem is:

Would there be significant benefit of extending Maternity leave for female employees
with regards to the Senate bill 1305 also known as “EXPANDED MATERNITY LEAVE
LAW OF 2017.”

The condition which give rise to my research question are:

The SSS maternity benefit is equivalent to 100 per cent of the member's average daily
salary credit multiplied by 60 days for normal delivery or miscarriage, 78 days for caesarean
section delivery. The maternity benefit shall be paid only for the first four (4) deliveries or
miscarriages. Because of this present benefit provided by the SSS, some employed mothers are
forced to return in their job for the reason that they are only provided the said days with pay and
the succeeding near future expenses will be not enough to provide for their new child. Especially
for the single mothers whose source of funds came from their jobs.

The ideal situation would have been:

Senate bill 1305 extend the maternity leave increasing from the present 60days leave for
normal delivery cases and 78days for caesarean delivery cases to be 120days maternity leave pay
in comparison to the international standard of at least 14weeks maternity leave under Convention
no. 183 of International Labour Organization, and as of the present, the organization in
proposing another recommendation to amend Article 4(1) of at least 18weeks of maternity leave.
Convention No. 183 Convention concerning the Revision of the Maternity Protection Convention (Revised), 1952
https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---gender/documents/genericdocument/wcms_114195.pdf, Last visited
October 7, 2018

The Expanded Maternity Leave Act will give new mothers more time to recover from
childbirth and focus on her postpartum care. Studies have shown that having a longer maternity
leave will help new moms lower their chances of developing postpartum depression. A longer
maternity leave will also give moms more time to care and bond with her baby, and arrange for
caregivers when she goes to work or needs a break.  Doctors have highlighted that one of the
crucial benefits of the proposed law is giving moms more time to establish an
exclusive breastfeeding practice and reap the benefits breast milk for her and her baby. 

Breastfeeding is critical for the first six months as breastmilk is the best source of
nutrition for babies. Containing millions of antibodies per drop, breastmilk protects babies and
children from a number of deadly diseases. The World Health Organization recommends
exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and continued breastfeeding with complementary
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food for children up to two years and beyond. Studies have shown that optimal breastfeeding
could have the single largest impact on child mortality than any preventive intervention.

The possible reasons for the discrepancy between No. 2 and 3 are:

 Lack of funds available to compensate the additional maternity leave pay.

 Lack of giving important the value of mother and child bonding that could benefit
not only the mother but also the child development in the future.

The following interventions have been done to address the problem, and the outcomes
were: (if none, say so,)

For me the intervention that related to the problem is that SSS worried that “Expanded
maternity benefits require money”. The so-called actuarial studies premised on an increase of
maternity benefits by 100 days entail additional expenses of some P4 billion over and above
some P6 billion they pay out each year as member benefits. “The SSS is supposed to be self-
sustaining,” This could also mean those who make policy decisions in government should
similarly be open to the likelihood that the SSS may eventually be forced to increase the monthly
contribution of its members. SSS may increase the member’s contribution rate so they can
provide the additional benefits.

The following facts/findings have been reported in related studies about the problem.

a) The effect of maternity leave extensions on firms and coworkers

By: Yana Gallen
http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/WoLabConf_2018/gallen_y25376.pdf, last visited, October 7, 2018

While a large literature is devoted to understanding the impact of maternity leave on

children’s outcomes and the careers of women, less is known about the consequences of
maternity leave at the workplace. This paper studies the effects of maternity leave on firms and
coworkers by examining a 2002 Danish reform which increased the length of parental leave by
22 weeks. The timing of the policy change gives random variation in the length of leave
available to women who gave birth around the time of the reform. I find no detectable effect of
the reform on the earnings or promotions of coworkers in any of the five years after the reform
(point estimates are about $100) and can reject differences in yearly earnings larger than $425
overall and differences larger than $280 for female coworkers. While there are some costs for
coworkers in the same occupation as women who give birth in the sample period, these costs are
1-1.5 percent of earnings. I also find evidence that the reform increases the probability of firm
shut-down by about two percentage points five years after the reform, concentrated among
relatively small firms. Conditional on survival, I find no impact of the reform on firm value
added.
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b) A flying start? Maternity leave and long-term outcomes for mother and child.
By: Pedro Carneiro, Katrine Løken and Kjell G. Salvanes
https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Workshops-Seminars/Labor-Public/carneiro-081031.pdf, last visited,
October 7, 2018

How important for children’s welfare and their long term adult outcomes is time spent
with the mother the first months after birth? And are the potential positive effects large enough to
trade-off a possible negative effect of the parents’ career and earning prospect by taking time off
work with their children? There is a large literature suggesting that more time spent with children
in their first year and especially in the first months has a positive impact on early child
development. However, there is also evidence that there is a wage loss for women related to
childbirths.3 The twin questions we ask in this paper are whether the support found for short
term positive effects in the childhood, gives the child an advantage also later in adult school and
labor market performance, and whether these effects are large compared to the mothers’ long
term labor market outcomes?

Mandatory parental leave policies have become an important part of the agenda in
industrialized countries due to the rapid increase in labor market participation of women. From a
theoretical perspective there may be good reasons for governmental interventions to secure
maternity leave regulations if there are market failures like credit constrains or information
problems. It might be that mothers or fathers would like to take leave from work after child birth,
however they may be credit constrained. It could also be that mothers do not perceive or value all
the future benefits for their children by staying at home.

Can families, by not working or working less in the first years of a child’s life, influence
the ability of children? And are the potential positive effects large enough to trade-off a possible
negative effect of the parents’ career and earning prospect by taking time off work with their
children? Exploiting a maternity leave reform in Norway, opening up for up to four months of
paid leave and an additional one year of unpaid leave, show us that this is the case. Children have
a higher probability of completing high school, going to college and have more years of
education and boys have a higher IQ score at age 18. By using yearly income of mothers we
have been able to split the sample into eligible and non-eligible mothers. This has not been done
in the literature before and gives us more precise estimate of the effect of maternity leave on
children’s long term outcomes. We use the rich dataset on family background variables to exploit
the effect on mother’s months of leave, income effects and probability to return to work within
two to five years after giving birth. We find that the reform increases the time mother spend at
home with infants- however they have a higher probability to return to work meaning a better job
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protection due to the maternity reform. This support our main source of mechanism of why an
increase in maternity leave should effect children’s outcomes, mother’s spend more time –
quality time – with the child in its first year of life. Then we use the data on family background
to understand more about heterogeneous effects of the reform. We find that the reform is more
effectual for children of low educated mothers.

The following questions about the problem, however, still remain unanswered:

In my opinion since the bill is in its third reading and waiting to become a law, the
problem would be that if it will be effective is SSS fund for enough to compensate the qualified
employees availing the benefit? And if the member’s contribution be increase, in what extend the
increase be that is reasonable to all members?