Return to work after childbirth: does parental leave matter in Europe?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is to investigate the role of the extended parental leave in the return to work for mothers of newborn children. Parental leaves have been introduced in the last 30 years in all European countries in order to extend the period of job-protection, allowing both parents to care for the child after the maternity leave period has expired. In this paper, I exploit the variability in policies offered by the EU countries, in terms of length of the leave and payments, and I study the influence of statutory leaves on the probability of staying at home with the child during the leave, and on the probability of working in the period of time following the leave. Using data from ECHP, I select women who have a child in the years of the survey, who have worked before, and I follow them over time. After studying the determinants of the return to work in each country separately, I generalize the results, matching women with similar human capital characteristics and fertility history from different countries and, consequently, under different parental leave regulations. Results suggest that the right to long and paid leaves gives mothers the opportunity to remain at home with the child at a lower cost, and that lengthy statutory leaves are associated with being more likely to be at work in the period following the leave.Keywords: parental leaves, women's labour supply, childbirth, childcare JEL classification: J13, J22 NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARYAlthough female labour market participation has increased everywhere, women are still likely to interrupt their career when they have a child, for a period of time longer than the basic maternity leave.The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of extended parental leave in the return to work for mothers of newborn children, exploiting the variability in policies across EU countries, in terms of length of the leave and payments during the period. Parental leaves (also called "child care" leaves) have been introduced in the last 30 years 1 in all European countries in order to extend the period of jobprotection, allowing both parents to care for the child after the maternity leave period has expired.Generally, supporters of these policies claim that leave results in healthier children and a better position for women in the labour market, while opponents state that these restrictions can adversely affect women's careers. What is the effect of providing long period...

Politike usklađivanja obiteljskih obaveza i plaćenog rada i položaj roditelja na tržištu rada

“…Izneseni rezultati istraživanja ukazuju na činjenicu kako dopusti dužeg trajanja nose sa sobom i negativne učinke na položaj žena na tržištu rada, budući da one takve dopuste dominantno i koriste. Pri tome je evidentan i klasni učinak, gdje je negativan učinak izraženiji kod osoba višeg obrazovanja (Pronzato, 2009.). To dovodi do propitivanja i reformi takvih shema roditeljskih dopusta u europskim zemljama, primjerice u Njemačkoj (Seeleib -Kaiser, 2010.…”

Women's and men’s career interruptions in Europe : the role of social policies1

“…The impact of a leave on maternal employment is ambiguous (Klerman and Leibowitz, 1997;Waldfogel et al, 1999;Pronzato, 2007). On the one hand, it guarantees return to the previous job so that the woman does not lose her specific human capital; on the other, it may withdraw women from the labour market for long periods, with negative implications for their future employability, wages, and career.…”

Grandparental availability for child care and maternal labor force participation: pension reform evidence from Italy

“…At the same time, in contrast to Battistin et al (2015), our definition of retirement pension eligibility does not assume continuous working lives which, although probably innocuous for grandfathers, could lead to a substantial overestimation of grandmother eligibility given the share of mothers who experience career interruptions or even permanent exit from the labor market around childbearing (Pronzato 2009). 5 Any such overestimation (or underestimation) of grandparental eligibility (a misclassification error) may lead to an attenuation bias in the estimates (Lewbel 2007).…”