Tanya Byker Receives NSF Funding for Research on Paid Family Leave

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Tanya Byker, assistant professor of economics, and Martha Bailey, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, have received a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation for their research project, titled “Measuring the Long‐Term Effects of California’s 2004 Paid Family Leave Statute with U.S. Tax Data.”

The goal of this research is to understand how the nation’s first paid family leave policy enacted in California affected parents’ careers and family structure over its first decade in existence. The grant provides funding for two undergraduate student research assistants to be involved in the research. The project is also supported by a grant from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

Byker joined the Economics faculty as an assistant professor in the fall of 2014. She teaches courses in regression, and the economics of gender. Her research falls under the categories of labor and development economics and focuses on the interrelated choices individuals make about education, work, and parenthood.