Parental Access to Paid Sick Leave

Paid sick leave (PSL) can be an important determinant of health care use. The United States lacks a federal PSL policy, but some employers have offered PSL benefits voluntarily, and a number of states and localities have mandated PSL benefit provision by employers. Access to PSL among adults has increased over time but less is known about trends in family-level access to PSL, which could impact children. This study documented trends over time in children’s access to family-level PSL. We hypothesized that children’s access to family-level PSL increased over time. We examined trends in the percentage of children who lived in families with at least 1 working parent in which an employed parent had PSL, using 2010 to 2024 nationally representative National Health Interview Survey data. We found that children gained family-level PSL access over time, with more than three-quarters of children having access to family-level PSL in 2024. However, these gains were not equally experienced across all children, and substantial differences in family-level PSL access existed across populations. Children in the United States have been gaining access to family-level PSL, but some groups, in particular, children of Hispanic ethnicity, have lagged behind other children in terms of access to this benefit.