IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejapp/v17y2025i2p41-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply

Author

Listed:
  • Barbara Boelmann
  • Anna Raute
  • Uta Schönberg

Abstract

We investigate the role of cultural norms in shaping women's labor supply decisions after childbirth. Specifically, we are interested in the interplay between childhood socialization and adulthood environment. To that end, we leverage the setting of the German reunification when East Germany's gender-egalitarian culture induced by socialism and West Germany's more traditional culture were brought together. We find that East German gender norms are persistent, whereas West German ones are not. West German mothers adjust their behavior to that of their East German peers not only when immersed in East German environment but even after returning to the West.

Suggested Citation

  • Barbara Boelmann & Anna Raute & Uta Schönberg, 2025. "Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 41-74, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:41-74
    DOI: 10.1257/app.20220567
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20220567
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E195882V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/22695
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/22696
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/app.20220567?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pamela Campa & Michel Serafinelli, 2019. "Politico-Economic Regimes and Attitudes: Female Workers under State Socialism," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(2), pages 233-248, May.
    2. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    3. Jennifer Hunt, 2006. "Staunching Emigration from East Germany: Age and the Determinants of Migration," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(5), pages 1014-1037, September.
    4. Emily Oster, 2019. "Unobservable Selection and Coefficient Stability: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 187-204, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Barbara Boelmann & Anna Raute & Uta Schönberg, 2020. "Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2020, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    2. Barbara Boelmann & Anna Raute & Uta Schönberg, 2021. "Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 090, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    3. Naomi Friedman-Sokuler & Claudia Senik, 2025. "From pink collar to lab coat: cultural persistence and diffusion of socialist gender norms," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-34, March.
    4. Pritchett, Lant, 2024. "Rely (only) on the rigorous evidence” is bad advice," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119818, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Mikel Bedayo & Raquel Vegas & Gabriel Jiménez & José-Luis Peydró, 2020. "Screening and Loan Origination Time: Lending Standards, Loan Defaults and Bank Failures," Working Papers 1215, Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. Roxana Elena Manea, 2021. "School Feeding Programmes, Education and Food Security in Rural Malawi," CIES Research Paper series 63-2020, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    7. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell & Trinh, Trong-Anh, 2022. "Energy poverty, temperature and climate change," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    8. Jie Dong & Yanjun Ren & Thomas Glauben, 2024. "Gospel or curse: the impact of religious beliefs on energy poverty in rural China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, December.
    9. Cattan, Sarah & Kamhöfer, Daniel A. & Karlsson, Martin & Nilsson, Therese, 2017. "The Short- and Long-Term Effects of Student Absence: Evidence from Sweden," IZA Discussion Papers 10995, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Björn Richter & Dmitry Kuvshinov & Gabriel Jiménez & José-Luis Peydró, 2022. "Monetary Policy, Inflation, and Crises: New Evidence from History and Administrative Data," Working Papers 1378, Barcelona School of Economics.
    11. Upasak Das & Rupayan Pal & Udayan Rathore & Bibhas Saha, 2023. "Rein in pandemic by pricing vaccine: Does social trust matter?," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2023-008, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    12. Stefan Bauernschuster & Michael Grimm & Cathy M. Hajo, 2023. "The Impact of Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Clinics on Early 20th Century U.S. Fertility and Mortality," CESifo Working Paper Series 10421, CESifo.
    13. Guirola, Luis, 2025. "Economic expectations under the shadow of party polarization: Evidence from 135 government changes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    14. Maja Adena & Julian Harke, 2022. "COVID-19 and pro-sociality: How do donors respond to local pandemic severity, increased salience, and media coverage?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 824-844, June.
    15. Bossavie, Laurent & Cho, Yoonyoung & Heath, Rachel, 2023. "The effects of international scrutiny on manufacturing workers: Evidence from the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    16. Kristin F. Butcher & Patrick J. McEwan & Akila Weerapana, 2024. "Women’s Colleges and Economics Major Choice: Evidence from Wellesley College Applicants," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 123-161, April.
    17. Stephen G. Dimmock & Jiekun Huang & Scott J. Weisbenner, 2022. "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your High-Skilled Labor: H-1B Lottery Outcomes and Entrepreneurial Success," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(9), pages 6950-6970, September.
    18. Cemal Eren Arbatlı & Quamrul H. Ashraf & Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2020. "Diversity and Conflict," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 727-797, March.
    19. Takahashi, Ryo, 2021. "How to stimulate environmentally friendly consumption: Evidence from a nationwide social experiment in Japan to promote eco-friendly coffee," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    20. Vittorio Bassi & Raffaela Muoio & Tommaso Porzio & Ritwika Sen & Esau Tugume, 2022. "Achieving Scale Collectively," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(6), pages 2937-2978, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: 1913-
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    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:aea:aejapp:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:41-74. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.