Topic Labor and Employment

Executive Boards of Large Companies Remain Male-Dominated Monocultures: Seven Questions to Elke Holst

Financial Sector: Share of Women in Top Decision-Making Bodies Remains Low

At the end of 2014, women were no better represented on the top decision-making bodies of enterprises in the financial sector than the previous year. The share of women on the executive boards of the 100 largest banks and savings banks remained at an average of almost seven percent and on the executive boards of the 60 largest insurance companies at 8.5 percent. On supervisory boards, change was slow ...

The Effects of Family Policy on Mothers' Labor Supply: Combining Evidence from a Structural Model and a Natural Experiment

Parental leave and subsidized child care are prominent examples of family policies supporting the reconciliation of family life and labor market careers for mothers. In this paper, we combine different empirical strategies to evaluate the employment effects of these policies for mothers in Germany. In particular we estimate a structural labor supply model and exploit a natural experiment, i.e. the ...

Women Still the Exception on Executive Boards of Germany's Large Firms: Gradually Increasing Representation on Supervisory Boards

The trend toward more women on the corporate boards of German companies continued in 2013, albeit on a small scale. The share of women on the supervisory boards of the 200 largest companies increased by more than two percentage points, and thus at a somewhat higher rate than in recent years, to just over 15 percent. The corresponding share of women on executive boards virtually stagnated at a low level ...

Public Companies Could Play a Pioneering Role: Six Questions to Elke Holst

Financial Sector: Upward Trend in Share of Women on Corporate Boards Progressing Only in Small Steps

Last year, more women were appointed to the executive boards of major financial institutions. The share of women on the executive boards of banks and savings banks at the end of 2013 was a good six percent, which represents an increase of almost two percentage points over the previous year. This increase is primarily attributable to changes at private financial institutions and cooperative banks. At ...

Eastern Germany Ahead in Employment of Women

Almost a quarter of a century after the fall of the Wall, there are still more women in employment in eastern Germany than in the west. Although the disparity is marginal now, the two regions started from dramatically different levels. In 1991, immediately after reunification, the employment rate for women in western Germany was 54.6 percent, but since then it has increased year on year, reaching 67.5 ...

Two Steps Forward - One Step Back? Evaluating Contradicting Child Care Policies in Germany

We apply a structural model of mothers’ labor supply and child care choices to evaluate the effects of two childcare reforms in Germany that were introduced simultaneously in August 2013. First, a legal claim to subsidized child care became effective for all children aged one year or older. Second, a new benefit called ‘Betreuungsgeld’ came into effect that is granted to families who do not use public ...

Two Steps Forward - One Step Back? Evaluating Contradicting Child Care Policies in Germany

We apply a structural model of mothers’ labor supply and child care choices to evaluate the effects of two childcare reforms in Germany that were introduced simultaneously in August 2013. First, a legal claim to subsidized child care became effective for all children aged one year or older. Second, a new benefit called ‘Betreuungsgeld’ came into effect that is granted to families who do not use public ...

Work Incentives, Earnings-Related Subsidies, and Employment in Low-Wage Labor Markets - Empirical Analysis and Policy Simulations for Germany 

The goal of this project is to empirically analyze the work incentive and employment effects of earnings-related subsidies in the presence of high structural unemployment when labor market flexibility is hindered by wage rigidity related to institutional factors, in particular minimum wages and means-tested income support for unemployed people. We specify and estimate a structural microeconometric...