Giving Compass' Take:

• Isabel V. Sawhill, Richard V. Reeves, and Sarah Nzau explain how paid leave policies can boost economic growth.

• How can funders work to get paid leave implemented at scale? Why hasn't paid leave already been implemented widely in the United States? 

• Learn why family caregiving matters for paid family and medical leave. 

Across the political spectrum, almost everybody agrees that stronger economic growth would be a good thing. But there is little agreement on how to achieve it. Nor is there much solid evidence; this is an area where political ideology runs very far ahead of economic science.

But in one area there is something close to unanimity: increasing labor force participation is very likely to lift the economic growth rate. More people working means more goods and services being produced and consumed.

In recent decades, male labor force participation has been declining in most advanced economies. In the U.S. female participation has started to dip in recent years, too. In fact, weaker labor market recovery during recent business cycles is due to a slowdown in the rate of growth in female employment, according to a new paper by Fukui et al. (For a full discussion see “What we know and don’t know about declining labor force participation: A review” by Isabel Sawhill and Eleanor Krause).

Reversing the decline in labor force participation trends is, then, an important goal for public policy. A first step is to understand the various factors influencing attachment to the labor market, for both men and women.

What barriers do women face in pursuing paid work? Research by Blau and Kahn suggests that one-third of the decrease in women’s employment in the U.S. relative to other advanced countries is related to the lack of benefits such as paid leave. The most common reason given by women for being out of the labor market is caring responsibilities.

Read the full article about paid leave by Isabel V. Sawhill, Richard V. Reeves, and Sarah Nzau at Brookings.