Family Leave Policies and Labor Market Segregation in Germany: Reinvention or Reform of the Male Breadwinner Model?¹

Abstract

The historically dominant male breadwinner and female carer model in West Germany has resulted in comparably low female employment rates and a gender-structured labor market. Since the 1970s, the decline of traditional patterns and sectors of male employment has been accompanied by the expansion of the female-dominated service sector. Supplemented by women's higher educational attainment, a pluralism of household forms, and German unification, the result has been constant growth in female employment. With more working mothers, the question of combining work and family has provoked policy responses that, in West Germany, have mainly centered on family leave policies. In addressing the question of whether these policies have resulted in a more equitable sharing of paid and family work, this article presents longitudinal empirical data on the working patterns of women entitled to different forms of family leave. These show how changing regulations have led to the institutionalization of a "baby break" for younger women and to the promotion of labor market exclusion.

Earner-Carer Model at the Crossroads: Reforms and Outcomes of Sweden's Family Policy in Comparative Perspective

“…No previous work requirements are needed to qualify for the homecare allowance, but the other adult in the household (parent or new partner) must be in employment or enrolled in education. The conclusions from other countries with homecare allowances are that such benefits are mainly used by women with low education, increasing the risks for marginalization in relation to the labor market (84,85). Similar outcomes have also been found in the other Nordic countries where homecare leave was introduced in family policy models otherwise oriented to sustaining earner-carer families (44,86,87).…”

Variation in Women's Employment Across European Countries: The Impact of Child Care Policy Solutions

“…Longer leaves should also decrease women's employment probability because career breaks decrease women's market human capital (Baum 2002;Gupta and Smith 2002). 1 (Gottschall and Bird [2003] have shown that in countries where longer leaves are available, women take on average longer leaves.) Women's returns from employment in these countries should decrease even more, because employers may perceive them more strongly as temporary employees (Avdeyeva 2006), which would lower women's chances of promotion, and hence, lower their earnings.…”

Does It Pay To Be a Woman? Labour Demand Effects of Maternity-Related Job Protection and Replacement Incomes

“…7 It is therefore useful to restrict the sample for the analysis to those women who would -potentially -be entitled to the full payment of maternity benefits as it can be assumed that employers would find it more likely that women with lower salaries would have a higher propensity to take (longer) leave. Evidence shows that indeed except for women with higher education German women took the full leave period of 3 years (Gottschall and Bird 2003, Büchel and van Ham 2004, Schönberg and Ludsteck 2014. As a consequence, women with a high level of education probably did not experience the same reduction in the probability of becoming hired.…”

“…[ Extended periods of leave and enhanced dismissal protection only applied to mothers and in Germany almost exclusively the women took maternity leave (Gottschall and Bird 2003), thus restricting the group of the labour force affected by the reform to women who could (potentially) give birth. Therefore, employers' expectations should have mainly changed about women in childbearing age since these were potentially covered by the reforms.…”