IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1288.html

Women's Hours of Market Work in Germany: The Role of Parental Leave

Author

Listed:
  • Merz, Monika

    (University of Vienna)

Abstract

This paper investigates trends and changes in the structural composition of women’s weekly market hours worked in former West-Germany using aggregate time-series data from the German micro census from 1957 until 2002. Aggregate weekly hours worked per working-age woman are decomposed into hours worked per employee – the intensive margin of adjustment – and the employment-to-population (EP-) ratio – the extensive margin. The decomposition is performed by women’s marital status, their age, and whether or not young children are present. The main results are that since the mid 1970s, the EP-ratio has steadily risen among female employees of all marital statuses whereas the weekly hours worked per female employee have declined. These changes have been the most distinct among married women with young children. The paper attributes much of the observed changes for married women to institutional modifications in the federal legislation governing parental leave which have occurred since 1986.

Suggested Citation

  • Merz, Monika, 2004. "Women's Hours of Market Work in Germany: The Role of Parental Leave," IZA Discussion Papers 1288, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1288
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1288.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Larry E. JONES & Rodolfo E. MANUELLI & Ellen R. McGRATTAN, 2015. "Why Are Married Women Working so much ?," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 75-114, March.
    2. Claudia Olivetti, 2006. "Changes in Women's Hours of Market Work: The Role of Returns to Experience," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(4), pages 557-587, October.
    3. Daniela Del Boca, 2002. "The effect of child care and part time opportunities on participation and fertility decisions in Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 15(3), pages 549-573.
    4. Christopher J. Ruhm, 1998. "The Economic Consequences of Parental Leave Mandates: Lessons from Europe," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 285-317.
    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. Christina Boll & Julian Leppin & Nora Reich, 2014. "Paternal childcare and parental leave policies: evidence from industrialized countries," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 129-158, March.
    2. Georg Wernhart & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2012. "Do Austrian men and women become more equal? At least in terms of labour supply!," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 39(1), pages 45-64, February.
    3. Kaiser, Lutz C., 2006. "Female Labor Market Transitions in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 2115, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Rafael Lalive & Analía Schlosser & Andreas Steinhauer & Josef Zweimüller, 2014. "Parental Leave and Mothers' Careers: The Relative Importance of Job Protection and Cash Benefits," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(1), pages 219-265.
    5. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde & Irene van Staveren, 2018. "Does Age Exacerbate the Gender-Wage Gap? New Method and Evidence From Germany, 1984–2014," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 108-130, October.
    6. Anna Cristina D’Addio & Simon Chapple & Andreas Hoherz & Bert Van Landeghem, 2014. "Using a quasi-natural experiment to identify the effects of birth-related leave policies on subjective well-being in Europe," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2013(1), pages 235-268.
    7. Pierre-Carl Michaud & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2005. "Employment Dynamics of Married Women in Europe," Working Papers WR-273, RAND Corporation.
    8. C. Katharina Spieß, 2011. "Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf – wie wirksam sind deutsche „Care Policies“?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(s1), pages 4-27, May.
    9. Michela Bia & German Blanco & Marie Valentova, 2021. "The Causal Impact of Taking Parental Leave on Wages: Evidence from 2005 to 2015," LISER Working Paper Series 2021-08, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    10. David Domeij, 2013. "Should Day Care be Subsidized?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(2), pages 568-595.
    11. Reich, Nora, 2008. "Das Bundeselterngeld- und Elternzeitgesetz in Deutschland: Analyse potenzieller Effekte auf Geburtenzahl und Fertilitätsstruktur," HWWI Policy Papers 1-10, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    12. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde & Irene van Staveren, 2015. "Differences in the Estimates of Gender Wage Gap Over The Life Cycle," Working Papers 2015-29, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    13. Boll, Christina & Leppin, Julian Sebastian & Reich, Nora, 2011. "Einfluss der Elternzeit von Vätern auf die familiale Arbeitsteilung im internationalen Vergleich," HWWI Policy Papers 59, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    14. Tamm Marcus, 2010. "Child Benefit Reform and Labor Market Participation," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 230(3), pages 313-327, June.
    15. Michaud, Pierre-Carl & Tatsiramos, Konstantinos, 2005. "Employment Dynamics of Married Women in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 1706, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    16. Nora Reich, 2014. "Fathers’ Childcare: The Differences Between Participation and Amount of Time," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 190-213, June.

    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. Angela Cipollone & Carlo D'Ippoliti, 2009. "Women's Employment: Beyond Individual Characteristics vs. Contextual Factors Explanations," Working Papers CELEG 0901, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.
    2. Fiaschi, Davide & Tealdi, Cristina, 2023. "The attachment of adult women to the Italian labour market in the shadow of COVID-19," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Matthias Doepke & Anne Hannusch & Fabian Kindermann & Michèle Tertilt, 2022. "The Economics of Fertility: A New Era," Working Papers 2022-012, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    4. Nicolas Hérault & Guyonne Kalb, 2022. "Understanding the rising trend in female labour force participation," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(4), pages 341-363, December.
    5. Michelle Rendall, 2011. "The Service Sector and Female Market Work: Europe vs US," 2011 Meeting Papers 778, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Michelle Petersen Rendall, 2010. "Brain versus brawn: the realization of women's comparative advantage," IEW - Working Papers 491, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jun 2017.
    7. Bridgman, Benjamin & Duernecker, Georg & Herrendorf, Berthold, 2018. "Structural transformation, marketization, and household production around the world," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 102-126.
    8. Hennig, Jan-Luca & Stadler, Balazs, 2021. "Firm-specific pay premiums and the gender wage gap in 21 European countries," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242354, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Matthias Doepke & Moshe Hazan & Yishay D. Maoz, 2015. "The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(3), pages 1031-1073.
    10. Fernández, Raquel & Wong, Joyce Cheng, 2011. "The Disappearing Gender Gap: The Impact of Divorce, Wages, and Preferences on Education Choices and Women's Work," IZA Discussion Papers 6046, IZA Network @ LISER.
    11. Andrés Erosa & Luisa Fuster & Gueorgui Kambourov & Richard Rogerson, 2022. "Hours, Occupations, and Gender Differences in Labor Market Outcomes," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 543-590, July.
    12. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2010. "The Macroeconomic Implications of Rising Wage Inequality in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 681-722, August.
    13. Chen, Kaiji & Imrohoroglu, Ayse & Imrohoroglu, Selahattin, 2009. "A quantitative assessment of the decline in the U.S. current account," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1135-1147, November.
    14. Ellen R. McGrattan & Richard Rogerson, 2004. "Changes in hours worked, 1950?2000," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 28(Jul), pages 14-33.
    15. Lalive, Rafael & Zweimüller, Josef, 2005. "Does Parental Leave Affect Fertility and Return-to-Work? Evidence from a "True Natural Experiment"," IZA Discussion Papers 1613, IZA Network @ LISER.
    16. Johannes Geyer & Viktor Steiner, 2007. "Short-Run and Long-Term Effects of Childbirth on Mothers' Employment and Working Hours across Institutional Regimes: An Empirical Analysis Based on the European Community Household Panel," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 682, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Ellen R. McGrattan & Richard Rogerson, 2007. "Changes in the distribution of family hours worked since 1950," Staff Report 397, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    18. Elisa Keller, 2013. "Occupational Complexity, Experience, and the Gender Wage Gap," 2013 Meeting Papers 348, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Rafael Lalive & Josef Zweim�ller, "undated". "Does Parental Leave Affect Fertility and Return-to-Work? Evidence from a �True Natural Experiment�," IEW - Working Papers 242, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Agnieszka Gehringer & Stephan Klasen, 2017. "Labor Force Participation of Women in the EU – What Role do Family Policies Play?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 31(1), pages 15-42, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp1288. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.