Paid parental leave and maternal reemployment

Abstract

"Employment subsidies can incentivize mothers to shorten employment interruptions after childbirth. We examine a German parental leave reform promoting an early return to work in part-time. Exploiting the exogenous variation in the benefit entitlement length defined by the child's birthday, we apply machine-learning augmented semi-parametric difference-indifference estimation using administrative data. The reform yields positive average employment effects mainly driven by part-time employment as our dynamic optimization model for mothers on parental leave suggests. Conditional effects show that the policy creates heterogenous incentives depending on the opportunity costs of working part-time." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Zimmert, F. & Zimmert, M. (2020): Paid parental leave and maternal reemployment. Do part-time subsidies help or harm? (Discussion paper / Universität Sankt Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economics 2020-02), St. Gallen, 59 p.