In Germany, the child care infrastructure is much less developed than in
most other Western European countries. Also, maternal labor force
participation is among the lowest in a Western European context. Empirical
studies for Germany have shown that there is excess demand for subsidized
child care and that the availability of child care slots has a positive
effect on maternal labor supply.
In this paper, I argue that many mothers are constraint in their employment
decision because of limited availability of (full-day) child care and that
their inability to work (full-time) entails losses in individual well-being.
I use panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study to show that the
majority of non-participating mothers is actually not able to enter gainful
employment. Controlling for a number of socio-economic and demographic
characteristics as well as for unobserved time-invariant individual
hetegogeneity, I find that mothers’ non-participation as well as part-time
employment (compared to full-time employment) is associated with lower life
satisfaction. These results contribute to the public debate about family
policies in Germany in the way that they show how important it is for
mothers’ individual well-being to be able to reconcile paid work with their
child responsibilities.
Presented by:
Eva Berger (ISER visitor, DIW, Berlin)
Date & time:
November 5, 2008 1:00 pm - November 5, 2008 12:00 am
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