Child care reforms and labor participation of migrant and native mothers

Abstract

"As in other countries, also in Germany there has been large political effort to increase mothers' labor participation through child care provisions. However, it is an open question whether the latest child care reforms of 2013 are successful in this sense. While the introduction of a home care allowance, the so called 'Betreuungsgeld', for families not using public child care for their children aged one and two years was expected to have negative effects, the introduced legal claim for public child care for children of the same age group should increase the use of public child care and therefore speed up the mothers' return to work after child birth. For the analysis we use the German socio-economic panel (GSOEP) and apply a multivariate analysis within the framework of a two-step difference-in-difference approach. Against expectations, results indicate that the reform had no negative effects on labor market participation of migrant mothers in the short run. Effects for the whole sample and for native mothers turn out to be significant positive. The government's motivation for the 'Betreuungsgeld' was to compensate families for not claiming publicly supported child care (Reform part 1) and to support women to reenter the labor market quickly after having given birth (Reform part 2). In the short run the government seems to have reached both aims." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Fendel, T. & Jochimsen, B. (2017): Child care reforms and labor participation of migrant and native mothers. (IAB-Discussion Paper 09/2017), Nürnberg, 22 p.