Erwerbsverläufe und frühzeitige Aktivierung von Bedarfsgemeinschaften mit kleinen Kindern

"Recipients of unemployment benefit II are required to undertake efforts to end or reduce their dependance on benefits. This includes the obligation to search for a job or to participate in measures of active labour market policy. One exception to this rule applies to benefit units caring for a child under the age of three, where one partner does not have to be available to the labour market, but can do so on a voluntary basis. This report uses administrative data to analyse how the labour market participation of parents receiving unemployment benefit II develops during the first four years after the birth of their child. Furthermore, the report examines the extent to which mothers and fathers are being activated by the job centres during this period. Hereby, activation comprises both appointments at the job centre as well as participation in active labor market programs. The sample for these analyses includes benefit units in which a child was born in 2014 or 2015 and which were receiving unemployment benefit II at least on the day of childbirth. The employment patterns of mothers and fathers indicate that primarily women take on the care of their children and are therefore not available for the labour market. A large share of the mothers in the sample is registered as not searching for a job in the first three years after the birth of their child. The fraction of mothers who is employed subject to social security contributions increases with the age of the child, but remains low throughout the observation period. After the child’s third birthday, the share of women being registered as active jobseekers increases substantially and the share participating in active labour market programmes rises slightly. This pattern is primarily driven by West German women, as jobseeker registrations and the employment rate of East German women already increase considerably after their child’s first birthday. The employment biographies of men seem to be largely unaffected by the birth of a child, as they are much more likely to be employed or actively looking for a job throughout the entire observation period. Fathers’ employment patterns also change only marginally around the third birthday of their child. During the period covered by this study, mothers are being activated to a very limited degree. Both the average number of job centre appointments and the share of individuals participating in active labour market programmes remain considerably lower for women than for men. However, the intensity at which mothers are being activated also differs between East and West German job centres. Around the first birthday of their child, East German women start to have more job centre appointments and participate in more programmes, whereas West German women do not do so until their child is three years old. Around four years after the birth of their child, slightly less than 20 percent of West German mothers are employed subject to social security contributions, while the corresponding proportion of East German mothers is around 28 percent. However, the available data do not allow to identify causal effects of early activation on parents’ employment prospects as participants of active labour market programmes differ from non-participants. In a field experiment, such (self-)selection could be controlled for as the target group could be randomly assigned to a treatment and a control group. Due to the random allocation, later differences in labour market outcomes between the two groups could be interpreted as causal effects of the treatment (e.g. more intensive early activation)." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))