Causal Determinants of Maternal Labor Market Outcomes and Child Development

In a situation of demographic aging, impending shortages of skilled labor, and rising female labor force participation rates, Germany as well as other OECD countries have adopted a set of reforms (of child care, parental leave benefits, paternal family leave) which directly affect maternal labor force participation and the social norms of childrearing, and which indirectly impact child development. Against this backdrop we propose to use up-to-date data and methods to answer questions of international relevance and to improve our understanding of the determinants of maternal labor market outcomes and child development. The results generate new insights on issues of utmost social interest such as the patterns behind female participation in the labor market and the determinants of child wellbeing including its heterogeneity across parental backgrounds.

Specifically, the proposed project investigates the causal effects of (1) motherhood timing on maternal labor market outcomes (e.g., participation, working hours, or wages), (2) motherhood timing and birth spacing on child outcomes (e.g., cognitive and non-cognitive skills), and (3) maternal labor market participation and employment interruptions on child outcomes (e.g., health and behavioral problems). To identify causal effects, subprojects 1 and 2 use the individual experience of fertility shocks (e.g., miscarriages or temporal infertility of either parent) and subproject 3 exploits a recent reform of the German parental leave system which generated a sharp institutional discontinuity with little opportunity for anticipation.

Using recent data and innovative approaches our research will answer questions of high relevance for society and policy-makers, such as

• does delaying first births improve maternal labor market outcomes, and does the effect vary by maternal age?
• can parents affect their children's early skill formation through longer spacing between sibling births?
• does maternal leave taking in the first or second year of a child's life improve child outcomes and does the effect vary by maternal education and the child's sex?

Each of our three subprojects proposes original research questions and applies appropriate research designs to advance the level of knowledge and to extend the international literature in various innovative ways. The proposed research benefits from the availability of the data and from the initiative and commitment of an experienced international research team. Furthermore, each subproject is socially and economically relevant beyond mere scientific interest.

Prof. Regina T. Riphahn, PhD (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

Dr. Kamila Cygan-Rehm (Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi))
Dr. Daniel Kühnle (University of Duisburg-Essen)