Canada’s expanded parental leave benefits caused an immediate drop in pregnancies as families strategically waited to conceive until they could cash in on the new deal.
April 25, 2026
Original Paper
Fertility Responses to Canada's Paid Parental Leave Expansion
SSRN · 6622098
The Takeaway
Human reproduction is far more calculated and sensitive to financial incentives than most people assume. When the government announced better benefits, thousands of couples delayed their plans to ensure their child would be born after the start date. This strategic pause was followed by a massive spike in births once the new rules took effect. The data challenges the idea that fertility is mostly a biological or accidental process. It shows that even the most intimate life decisions are subject to a cold, economic logic of timing and benefit maximization.
From the abstract
Canada doubled paid and protected parental leave for parents of children born after December 30th, 2000, creating an eligibility cutoff that has been widely used as a quasi-experiment. We study fertility dynamics around this reform using new administrative data. The policy was announced 14 months in advance, allowing families to delay fertility. Consistent with this, we document an immediate reduction in conceptions after the announcement: in the latter half of 2000, births among benefit-eligibl