Wind of Change? Cultural Determinants of Maternal Labor Supply

Abstract

Mit der Reihe "IAB-Discussion Paper" will das Forschungsinstitut der Bundesagentur für Arbeit den Dialog mit der externen Wissenschaft intensivieren. Durch die rasche Verbreitung von Forschungsergebnissen über das Internet soll noch vor Drucklegung Kritik angeregt und Qualität gesichert werden.The "IAB-Discussion Paper" is published by the research institute of the German Federal Employment Agency in order to intensify the dialogue with the scientific community. The prompt publication of the latest research results via the internet intends to stimulate criticism and to ensure research quality at an early stage before printing.

Culture, children and couple gender inequality

“…For East Germans living in West Germany, i.e. couples who have moved, the effect on labour market outcomes are similar to East German stayers (similar results on the individual level have been found by Boelmann et al, 2021;Collischon et al, 2020).…”

“…Both before and after those reforms, a large share of mothers did not return to the labour market and, if so, mostly part-time. Differences in attitudes towards maternal employment were also pronounced as can be seen in derogatory nicknames working mothers had in the FGR ("raven mothers") and non-working mothers in the GDR ("parasites", see Boelmann et al, 2021).…”

Active Labour Market Policies for the Long-Term Unemployed: New Evidence from Causal Machine Learning

“…Moreover, women living in West Germany and in districts with low unemployment rates benefit more from JT and PS than women living in East Germany and in districts with high unemployment rates. The fact that those women with the highest potential to raise their employment rate are found among elderly women, married women and women in the West, a region that was characterised by more conservative attitudes towards childcare (Boelmann, Raute, and Schönberg (2020)) and scarcer provision of external childcare (Rosenfeld, Trappe, and Gornick (2004)), might be related to their (rather low) labour market attachment. In addition, the result that the programme effects increase with the sanction rates could be in line with such an interpretation.…”

Gene-Environment Effects on Female Fertility

“…Our perspective on the role of gene-environment interactions is thus in the spirit of a social control mechanism, according to which genetic influences are mediated by structural constraints, societal contexts, norms, and -more broadly -culture (Shanahan and Hofer, 2005;Guiso et al, 2006;Bisin and Verdier, 2011;Boelmann et al, 2021). Social norms, such as those shaped by the pill revolution, are expected to channel genetic influences into fertility behavior, either magnifying or mitigating their impacts on outcomes.…”