Back to work or stay at home? Family policies and maternal employment in Finland

Österbacka, Eva; Räsänen, Tapio

doi:10.1007/s00148-021-00843-4

Cited by 19 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(45 reference statements)

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“…For Finland, Kosonen (2014) provides evidence that the home care allowance reduces mothers' labor market participation, and Österbacka and Räsänen (2022) identify that a higher level of home care allowance combined with low labor market attachment and low earnings potential before birth extends home care lengths. Nevertheless, as Drange and Rege (2013) show for Norway, this effect diminishes over time.…”

Section: Theoretical Foundations International Evidence and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Home care allowance and labor market participation of immigrant and native-born mothers

Fendel

Jochimsen

2022

SN Soc Sci

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Most countries still have a significant gender gap in labor force participation, and this gap is especially large for immigrants. Despite this gap, Germany introduced various forms of home care allowances in the last decade. Parallel to the extension of early child care and the inclusion of a legal claim for it, from 2013 to 2015, a nationwide home care allowance existed for parents who did not use public child care for children aged one or two years. After 2015, home care allowances continued to exist in several German federal states. Some politicians strongly criticized this transfer for allegedly decreasing work incentives, particularly for mothers with lower labor market integration, such as immigrant mothers. Using federal state differentiated data obtained from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we investigate the impact of a home care allowance on the labor market participation of mothers. For both native-born and especially immigrant mothers, the effects are significantly negative. We conclude that a home care allowance has negative effects on the labor force participation of mothers of young children, irrespective of the legal claim for and the extension of public child care.

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Section: Theoretical Foundations International Evidence and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Home care allowance and labor market participation of immigrant and native-born mothers

Fendel

Jochimsen

2022

SN Soc Sci

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“…When we repeated the tests for the new recipients only, the resulting patterns are not substantially different from those presented here (available upon request). 22 For a recent contribution see Österbacka and Räsänen (2021). return after year 1.…”

Section: Heterogeneity In Before-after Effects: Hypotheses and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal employment effects of paid parental leave

Bergemann

Riphahn

2022

J Popul Econ

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We study the short-, medium-, and long-run employment effects of a substantial change in Germany’s parental leave benefit program. In 2007, a means-tested parental leave transfer program that paid benefits for up to 2 years was replaced with an earnings-related transfer that paid benefits for up to 1 year. The reform changed the regulation for prior benefit recipients and added benefits for those who were not eligible before. Although long-run labor force participation did not change substantially—the reform sped up mothers’ labor market return after their benefits expired. Likely pathways for this substantial reform effect are changes in social norms and in mothers’ preferences for economic independence.

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“…We expect the long family leaves in Finland to be one crucial issue behind the country differences, as leaves longer than a year are almost entirely taken by women. In support of this argument, recent research shows that the provision of home-care allowance has a long-term negative impact on the earnings of mothers as compared to fathers in Finland (Gruber, Kosonen, and Huttunen 2023), in part by delaying mothers' return to employment after childbirth (Österbacka and Räsänen 2022). More broadly, such a leave take-up pattern may signal to (potential) employers that young women are at risk of long employment breaks even if they have no children (at least not yet).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Relationship of Childbearing with Earnings Accumulated by Midlife in Two Nordic Countries

Nisén¹,

Erlandsson²,

Jalovaara³

2023

Preprint

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Nordic countries are considered advanced in gender equality, but also in these countries women still take longer family leaves and have lower earnings than men. This study provides novel insight by assessing the differences in accumulated earnings by midlife associated with childbearing among women and men in Finland and Sweden. We place particular attention to the magnitude of gender gaps in accumulated earnings across groups. We hypothesize larger gender gaps among those with a larger number of children, among those with a lower level of education, and overall, in Finland. The study is based on full-population register data, with highly accurate measures of earnings across decades. Our results indicate that women born in 1974–1975 accumulated on average 32 % and 29 % less labor earnings than men by age 44 in Finland and Sweden, respectively. Childbearing strongly modifies the gender gap especially in Finland, and the highly educated have moderately smaller gaps in both countries.

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Back to work or stay at home? Family policies and maternal employment in Finland

Cited by 19 publications

References 29 publications

Home care allowance and labor market participation of immigrant and native-born mothers

Home care allowance and labor market participation of immigrant and native-born mothers

Maternal employment effects of paid parental leave

Gendered Relationship of Childbearing with Earnings Accumulated by Midlife in Two Nordic Countries

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