This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, April 17th, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Advocates have federally mandated paid family leave should first consider the effect of unpaid family leave.

The lessons of that policy signed into law 20 years ago can help us better understand how women,

the primary intended beneficiaries of Central Policy, might be harmed by paid family leave.

Cato policy analyst Vanessa Brown Calder comments.

So we do have research on the Family and Medical Leave Act and despite it being sort of an accepted

part of the legislative fabric, the current legislative fabric, the consequences

of the

consequences of the policy are not all stellar. So analysis suggests that women hired after the policy are 5% more likely to be employed

but that they are 8% less likely to be promoted.

Okay, what does that mean?

I mean, what does that mean for women?

I mean, presumably that might exacerbate the much-malined pay gap?

Yeah, absolutely.

And we do see, so there's a variety of current, there's a variety of proposals out there

across the board right now coming from all sorts of different individuals and the two

different parties of course the Republican Party has certain congressmen and

women who have come up with proposals for either mandated child care, mandated paid leave.

The Democrats of course have this as well.

And Ivanca Trump sort of put forth her own proposal which my understanding is she is lobbying

Congress for right now. So there's a variety of examples of various proposals which

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