Arbeitspapier

The effects of family policy on mothers' labor supply: Combining evidence from a structural model and a natural experiment

Parental leave and subsidized child care are prominent examples of family policies supporting the reconciliation of family life and labor market careers for mothers. In this paper, we combine different empirical strategies to evaluate the employment effects of these policies for mothers in Germany. In particular we estimate a structural labor supply model and exploit a natural experiment, i.e. the reform of parental leave benefits. By exploiting and combining the advantages of the different methods, i.e the internal validity of the natural experiment and the external validity of the structural model, we can go beyond evaluation studies restricted to one particular methodology. Our findings suggest that a combination of parental leave benefits and subsidized child care leads to sizable employment effects of mothers.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research ; No. 645

Classification
Wirtschaft
Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: Household
Time Allocation and Labor Supply
Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
Subject
labor supply
parental leave benefits
childcare costs
structural model
natural experiment

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Geyer, Johannes
Haan, Peter
Wrohlich, Katharina
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
(where)
Berlin
(when)
2014

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Geyer, Johannes
  • Haan, Peter
  • Wrohlich, Katharina
  • Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)

Time of origin

  • 2014

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