This paper examines how culture impacts within-couple gender inequality. Exploiting the setting of Germany's division and reunification, I compare child penalties of couples socialised in a more gender-egalitarian culture (East Germany) to those in a gender-traditional culture (West Germany). Using a household panel, I show that the long-run child penalty on the female income share is 26.9 percentage ...
This paper studies the effects of Covid-19 related daycare and school closures on gender role attitudes toward maternal employment in Germany. We compare women and men with dependent children to those without children one year after the outbreak of the pandemic. Using data on gender role attitudes from 2008 through 2021, we find that fathers’ egalitarian attitudes toward maternal employment dropped ...
Social norms have been put forward as prominent explanations for the changing labour supply decisions of women. This paper studies the intergenerational formation of these norms, examining how they affect subsequent female labour supply decisions, taking into account not only the early socialization of women but also that of their partner. Using large representative panel data sets from West Germany, ...
We examine the effects of Covid-19 and related restrictions on individuals with dependent children in Germany. We specifically focus on the role of day care center and school closures, which may be regarded as a “disruptive exogenous shock” to family life. We make use of a novel representative survey of parental well-being collected in May and June 2020 in Germany, when schools and day care centers ...
A large literature documents effects of parental leave on mothers' labour market outcomes, yet we know very little about the effects on their firms and co-workers. We use unique administrative data that covers the universe of employees subject to social security and firms in Germany to address this question. We first establish some novel stylised facts in parental leave-taking ...
This paper provides evidence that low private contributions to highly subsidised day care constrain mothers from working longer hours. We study the effects of reforms that abolished day care fees in Germany on parental labour supply. The reforms removed private contributions to highly subsidised day care in the year before children enter primary school. We exploit the staggered reform across states ...
We examine the differential effects of Covid-19 and related restrictions on individuals with dependent children in Germany. We specifically focus on the role of school and day care center closures, which may be regarded as a "disruptive exogenous shock" to family life. We make use of a novel representative survey of parental well-being collected in May and June 2020 in Germany, when schools and day ...
This paper evaluates how a light-touch parenting program for parents of children below school entry age affects maternal family well-being. We analyze data from a randomized controlled trial focusing on non-disadvantaged parents. Overall, results show no short-term effects but a relatively large positive effect of the intervention on maternal family well-being in the medium term. With a 20- to 30-percent ...
We estimate the effects of center-based care on parenting activities with children using data from time diaries and a family survey for Germany. Our estimates imply that usage of center-based care reduces the amount of time that a parent spends with their enrolled child, but only small negative effects on the amount of time spent on parenting activities. Correspondingly, center-based care increases ...
We document gaps in day care enrolment by family background in a country with a universal day care system (Germany). Research demonstrates that children of parents with lower educational attainment and children of migrant parents may benefit the most from day care, making it important to understand why such enrolment gaps exist. We use a unique data set that records both parental demand for day care ...