Maternal Employment Effects of Paid Parental Leave

Annette Bergemann and Regina Riphahn

No 9073, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the short, medium, and longer run employment effects of a substantial change in the parental leave benefit program in Germany. In 2007, a means-tested parental leave transfer program that had paid benefits for up to two years was replaced by an earnings related transfer which paid benefits for up to one year. The reform generated winners and losers with heterogeneous response incentives. We find that the reform speeds up the labor market return of both groups of mothers after benefit expiration. The overall time until an average mother with (without) prior claims to benefits returns to the labor force after a birth declined after the reform by 10 (8) months at the median. We show that likely pathways for this substantial reform effect are changes in social norms and mothers' preferences for economic independence.

Keywords: female labor supply; maternal labor supply; parental leave; parental leave benefit; child-rearing benefit; parents' money (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 77 pages
Date: 2015-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-eur and nep-lab
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

Published - published in: Journal of Population Economics, 2023, 36, 139 - 178

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp9073.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Maternal employment effects of paid parental leave (2023)
Working Paper: Maternal employment effects of paid parental leave (2020)
Working Paper: Maternal Employment Effects of Paid Parental Leave (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9073

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().