"In this paper we make use of the panel aspects of the German GSOEP, the Swedish HUS and the British BHPS data...[to analyze] labor force transitions triggered by child births of different birth orders.... We find that German and British women have even higher full-time labor force participation than Swedish women 12 months before the birth of the first child. The difference is more pronounced for second and third births than for first births. We suggest that these differences are caused by different family policy regimes where Germany can be characterized as a breadwinner regime and Sweden a regime oriented towards equal role sharing of father and mother. Our results on determinants of being in the labor force both after and before the birth of a child as well as determinants of the tempo of entering the labor force after birth show that women's own human capital is important both in Germany and Great Britain, whereas in Sweden also less educated women have entered the labor force by the time the child is 2 years old."

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Low educational levels and the effect of children are recognized as the most important factor for low female participation rates. Over the last decades, female labour supply in Europe has shown a large increase. This may be the result of changes in the level of education or fertility. It is also possible that it is due to changes in behaviour, as influenced by the social and institutional context. Our results show that increases in participation rates cannot be explained by changes in either educational level or the number and timing of children. Female labour supply increases for all educational levels and for both women with and without children. In other words, it is mainly changes in behaviour driving the increase in participation rates over the last decades.

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There is a strong effect of childbirth on female labour supply.This effect, however, is changing over time.This article uses panel data on the last two decades on three European countries (the Netherlands, Germany, the UK) to study changes in female labour force behaviour around childbirth and tries to find an explanation for these changes by looking at differences between the three countries. We conclude that there are substantial differences in participation patterns between the three countries in our study and that policy measures and institutions such as childcare that make the costs of combining work and family lower relative to being a full-time mother seem to increase female participation rates. KEY WORDSfamily policies / female labour supply / institutions / transitions / work-life balance

The article investigates the effect of taxes and social premiums on female labour supply and household income. A comparison is made between labour supply and household income between the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany in 1992. A discrete choice model for labour supply is used in which taxes and social premiums are implicitly incorporated. As male labour supply is highly inelastic an individual, male chauvinist model is used. The estimated models are used to simulate the effect of the differences in the tax and social premium system on the differences in labour supply and income between both countries. The results indicate that labour force participation is higher the more individualized the system. The German system leads to a lower tax burden compared to the Dutch system. It is concluded that differences in the tax and social premium system between both countries have hardly any influence on the differences in the inequality of net household labour income. There is evidence that the German system leads to a slightly more unequal distribution of household income. It is also concluded that although the tax and social premium system does influence labour supply and income, it can be doubted whether these effects are substantial.

Despite major improvements in women's labour market attachment, women still earn considerably less than men. International research shows that the persistence of the gender pay gap may be due to the fact that although the gap in characteristics between men and women is diminishing, changes in the wage structure counteract this change. This article will study whether this 'swimming upstream' phenomenon is also playing a role in the rather slow convergence between male and female wages in The Netherlands. Our results indicate that this is not the case; most of the changes in the Dutch wage structure have been rather favourable to women. The lacking convergence in wages has to be explained from the fact that despite the favourable changes, the Dutch wage structure still contains a considerable implicit gender bias.

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