Local Day-Care Quality and Maternal Employment: Evidence from East and West Germany

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 SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research at DIW BerlinThis series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly.Any opinions expressed in this series are those of the author(s) and not those of DIW Berlin.Research disseminated by DIW Berlin may include views on public policy issues, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. respectively. In East Germany, mothers with a child aged under three years who lived in districts with smaller day-care groups were more likely to be employed and to extend their work hours. InWest Germany, the negative association of child-teacher-ratios with maternal employment was marginally significant. For mothers with older children, day-care quality was unrelated to employment.

Public Child‐Care Expansion and Changing Gender Ideologies of Parents in Germany

“…The significant results for West German mothers provided only partial support for Hypothesis 1, assuming that the increase in public child‐care provision was associated with a change toward less‐traditional gender ideologies. The effect sizes were modest, ranging between 3% and 4% of a standard deviation, which corresponds to the mostly moderate influences of similar regional‐level indicators found in previous studies (e.g., Grunow & Müller, ; Schober & Spiess, ; Schober & Stahl, ). Among West German mothers, a 10‐percentage point increase in child‐care provision was associated with a 29% decrease in attitudinal support toward less‐traditional gender ideologies toward women's careers, which corresponded to a decrease of 0.33 points on the five‐point scale.…”

“…Furthermore, child‐care quality standards vary across Germany, particularly when it comes to the regulation of structural aspects, such as minimum teacher‐child ratios, group sizes, opening hours, or supervision and training requirements for staff. In East Germany, child‐teacher ratios and group sizes are larger when compared with West Germany, and sometimes larger than usually recommended for children aged younger than 3 years (Schober & Spiess, ).…”

“…Similarly, in 2015, almost 40% of children aged younger than 3 years in East Germany attended full‐time child care, that is, more than 7 hours a day, compared to only 13% in West Germany (Federal Statistical Office, ). Child‐care fees are often income dependent and well below the average of Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries (Schober & Spiess, ), and recent research shows that during the expansion period, parents' child‐care expenditures have significantly increased only for households with higher incomes (Schmitz, Spieß, & Stahl, ). Furthermore, child‐care quality standards vary across Germany, particularly when it comes to the regulation of structural aspects, such as minimum teacher‐child ratios, group sizes, opening hours, or supervision and training requirements for staff.…”

School entry, afternoon care, and mothers’ labour supply

“…Berger et al, 2005;Nollenberger and Rodríguez-Planas, 2015), childcare subsidies (e.g. Baker et al, 2008;Brilli et al, 2013;Lefevbre and Merrigan, 2008;Schober and Spiess, 2015), as well as public preschool education (e.g. Berlinski and Galiani, 2007;Blau and Currie, 2006;Cascio, 2009;Fitzpatrick, 2012;Goux and Maurin, 2010).…”

“…Private or informal childcare arrangements are not common, as they are in Southern European countries such as Italy (Bettio and Plantenga, 2004). At the same time, Germany has witnessed a radical policy shift with the development of a number of family friendly policies aimed at easing the reconciliation between family responsibilities and employment (Bauernschuster and Schlotter, 2015;Schober and Spiess, 2015). These changes have occurred against the background of an expanding economy, which has not been hit by the great recession to the same extent as other countries.…”