Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwsop/diw_sp422.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Maternal Labor Market Return, Parental Leave Policies, and Gender Inequality in Housework

Author

Listed:
  • Pia S. Schober

Abstract

This study investigates how the duration of the work interruption and the labor market status of mothers upon their return affect the division of housework in couples after a birth. By observing several parental leave policy reforms in Britain and West-Germany, this research also explores how extended leave entitlements for mothers influence the division of housework. The analysis uses multilevel multiprocess models for 1220 birth events of British couples and 1785 births to German couples based on data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991-2008) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (1985-2009). The results suggest that mothers increase their housework hours with every additional month of employment interruption. Mothers' full-time return seems more effective than a short labor market time-out in altering men's housework contributions and reducing the trend towards a more traditional division of housework. Parental leave policy extensions for mothers were associated with the division of housework only indirectly through their impact on the length of women's work interruptions.

Suggested Citation

  • Pia S. Schober, 2011. "Maternal Labor Market Return, Parental Leave Policies, and Gender Inequality in Housework," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 422, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp422
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.391133.de/diw_sp0422.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jan Ondrich & C. Spiess & Qing Yang & Gert Wagner, 2003. "The Liberalization of Maternity Leave Policy and the Return to Work after Childbirth in Germany," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 77-110, January.
    2. Spiess, C.Katharina & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2008. "The Parental Leave Benefit Reform in Germany: Costs and Labour Market Outcomes of Moving towards the Nordic Model," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 27, pages 575-591.
    3. Yoshio Higuchi & Jane Waldfogel & Masahiro Abe, 1999. "Family leave policies and women's retention after childbirth: Evidence from the United States, Britain, and Japan," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 12(4), pages 523-545.
    4. Jane Waldfogel, 1998. "Understanding the "Family Gap" in Pay for Women with Children," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 137-156, Winter.
    5. Gert G. Wagner & Joachim R. Frick & Jürgen Schupp, 2007. "The German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) – Scope, Evolution and Enhancements," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 127(1), pages 139-169.
    6. Noah Uhrig, S.C., 2008. "The nature and causes of attrition in the British Household Panel Study," ISER Working Paper Series 2008-05, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    7. Shelly Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak, 1996. "Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 139-158, Fall.
    8. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, February.
    9. Fiona Steele & Constantinos Kallis & Harvey Goldstein & Heather Joshi, 2005. "The relationship between childbearing and transitions from marriage and cohabitation in Britain," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(4), pages 647-673, November.
    10. Markus Gangl & Andrea Ziefle, 2009. "Motherhood, labor force behavior, and women’s careers: An empirical assessment of the wage penalty for motherhood in britain, germany, and the united states," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 46(2), pages 341-369, May.
    11. Wendy Sigle-Rushton & Jane Waldfogel, 2007. "Motherhood and women's earnings in Anglo-American, Continental European, and Nordic Countries," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 55-91.
    12. Ursula Henz, 2008. "Gender roles and values of children: Childless Couples in East and West Germany," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 19(39), pages 1451-1500.
    13. Joya Misra & Irene Böckmann & Michelle Budig, 2010. "Cross-National Patterns in Individual and Household Employment and Work Hours by Gender and Parenthood," LIS Working papers 544, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Chiara Pronzato, 2009. "Return to work after childbirth: does parental leave matter in Europe?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 341-360, December.
    15. Suzanne Bianchi, 2000. "Maternal employment and time with children: Dramatic change or surprising continuity?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(4), pages 401-414, November.
    16. Man Yee Kan, 2008. "Does gender trump money? Housework hours of husbands and wives in Britain," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 22(1), pages 45-66, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Geyer, Johannes & Haan, Peter & Spieß, C. Katharina & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2013. "Das Elterngeld und seine Wirkungen auf das Haushaltseinkommen junger Familien und die Erwerbstätigkeit von Müttern," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 193-211.
    2. Pia S. Schober, 2012. "Parental Leave Policies and Child Care Time in Couples after Childbirth," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 434, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pia S. Schober, 2012. "Parental Leave Policies and Child Care Time in Couples after Childbirth," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 434, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    2. Pia S. Schober & Gundula Zoch, 2015. "Change in the Gender Division of Domestic Work after Mummy or Daddy Took Leave: An Examination of Alternative Explanations," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 803, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    3. Anita Kottwitz & Anja Oppermann & C. Katharina Spiess, 2016. "Parental leave benefits and breastfeeding in Germany: effects of the 2007 reform," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 859-890, December.
    4. Fazeer Rahim, 2014. "Work-family attitudes and career interruptions due to childbirth," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 177-205, March.
    5. Ina GANGULI & Ricardo HAUSMANN & Martina VIARENGO, 2014. "Closing the gender gap in education: What is the state of gaps in labour force participation for women, wives and mothers?," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 153(2), pages 173-207, June.
    6. Cygan-Rehm, Kamila & Maeder, Miriam, 2013. "The effect of education on fertility: Evidence from a compulsory schooling reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 35-48.
    7. Mareike Wagner, 2012. "The Impact of Social Support Networks on Maternal Employment: A Comparison of West German, East German and Migrant Mothers of Pre-School Children," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 483, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    8. Nieto, Adrián, 2021. "Native-immigrant differences in the effect of children on the gender pay gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 654-680.
    9. Jan Bavel & Martin Klesment, 2017. "Educational Pairings, Motherhood, and Women’s Relative Earnings in Europe," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(6), pages 2331-2349, December.
    10. Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska & Anna Matysiak, 2018. "The Motherhood Wage Penalty: A Meta-Analysis," VID Working Papers 1808, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
    11. Marcus Tamm, 2018. "Fathers’ Parental Leave-Taking, Childcare Involvement and Mothers’ Labor Market Participation," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1006, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    12. Spieß, C. Katharina & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2006. "The Parental Leave Benefit Reform in Germany: Costs and Labour Market Outcomes of Moving towards the Scandinavian Model," IZA Discussion Papers 2372, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Elina Pylkkänen & Nina Smith, 2003. "Career Interruptions Due to Parental Leave: A Comparative Study of Denmark and Sweden," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 1, OECD Publishing.
    14. Nizalova, Olena Y. & Sliusarenko, Tamara & Shpak, Solomiya, 2016. "The motherhood wage penalty in times of transition," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 56-75.
    15. Geyer, Johannes & Haan, Peter & Spieß, C. Katharina & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2013. "Das Elterngeld und seine Wirkungen auf das Haushaltseinkommen junger Familien und die Erwerbstätigkeit von Müttern," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 25(2), pages 193-211.
    16. Annette Bergemann & Regina Riphahn, 2011. "Female labour supply and parental leave benefits - the causal effect of paying higher transfers for a shorter period of time," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 17-20.
    17. Haya Stier & Amit Kaplan, 2020. "Are Children a Joy or a Burden? Individual- and Macro-level Characteristics and the Perception of Children," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 36(2), pages 387-413, April.
    18. Li Ma, 2014. "Economic crisis and women’s labor force return after childbirth: Evidence from South Korea," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 31(18), pages 511-552.
    19. C. Spiess & Katharina Wrohlich, 2008. "The Parental Leave Benefit Reform in Germany: Costs and Labour Market Outcomes of Moving towards the Nordic Model," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 27(5), pages 575-591, October.
    20. Joanne S. Muller & Nicole Hiekel & Aart C. Liefbroer, 2020. "The Long-Term Costs of Family Trajectories: Women’s Later-Life Employment and Earnings Across Europe," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(3), pages 1007-1034, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Parenthood; parental leave policy; maternal employment; housework; gender division of labor; Britain; Germany;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. SOEP based publications

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp422. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sodiwde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.