Jan Dirk Vlasblom

Women`s labor force transitions in connection with childbirth: A panel data comparison between Germany, Sweden and Great Britain

In this paper we make use of the panel aspects of the German GSOEP, the Swedish HUS and the British BHPS data. In these data sets we known month and year of childbirth and the month to month labor force status of the mother also before giving birth. This permits analysis of labor force transitions triggered by child births of different birth orders. From macro data Swedish women are known to have the highest labor force participation. The difference in total labor force participation of women is totally a result of fewer mothers entering the labor force and entering later in Germany and Great Britain than in Sweden. This paper shows that before birth of first child there is no such difference. We find that German and British women have even higher full-time labor force participation than Swedish women 12 months before the birth of the first child. The difference is more pronounced for second and third births than for first births. We suggest that these differences are caused by different family policy regimes where Germany can be characterized as a breadwinner regime and Sweden a regime oriented towards equal role sharing of father and mother. Our results on determinants of being in the labor force both after and before the birth of a child as well as determinants of the tempo of entering the labor force after birth shows that womens own human capital is important both in Germany and Great Britain, whereas in Sweden also less educated women have entered the labor force by the time the child is 2 years old.

Changing dynamics in female employment around childbirth

There is a strong effect of childbirth on female labour supply.This effect, however, is changing over time.This article uses panel data on the last two decades on three European countries (the Netherlands, Germany, the UK) to study changes in female labour force behaviour around childbirth and tries to find an explanation for these changes by looking at differences between the three countries.We conclude that there are substantial differences in participation patterns between the three countries in our study and that policy measures and institutions such as childcare that make the costs of combining work and family lower relative to being a full-time mother seem to increase female participation rates.

Taxes, female labour supply and household income: differences between the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany

The article investigates the effect of taxes and social premiums on female labour supply and household income. A comparison is made between labour supply and household income between the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany in 1992. A discrete choice model for labour supply is used in which taxes and social premiums are implicitly incorporated. As male labour supply is highly inelastic an individual, male chauvinist model is used. The estimated models are used to simulate the effect of the differences in the tax and social premium system on the differences in labour supply and income between both countries. The results indicate that labour force participation is higher the more individualized the system. The German system leads to a lower tax burden compared to the Dutch system. It is concluded that differences in the tax and social premium system between both countries have hardly any influence on the differences in the inequality of net household labour income. There is evidence that the German system leads to a slightly more unequal distribution of household income. It is also concluded that although the tax and social premium system does influence labour supply and income, it can be doubted whether these effects are substantial.

Why do women still earn less than men? Decomposing the Dutch gender pay gap, 1996–2006

Despite major improvements in womens labour market attachment, women still earn considerably less than men. International research shows that the persistence of the gender pay gap may be due to the fact that although the gap in characteristics between men and women is diminishing, changes in the wage structure counteract this change. This article will study whether this ‘swimming upstream’ phenomenon is also playing a role in the rather slow convergence between male and female wages in the Netherlands. Our results indicate that this is not the case; most of the changes in the Dutch wage structure have been rather favourable to women. The lacking convergence in wages has to be explained from the fact that despite the favourable changes, the Dutch wage structure still contains a considerable implicit gender bias.

Life Courses, Diversity and the Reform of the Unemployment Insurance Act

The understanding of diversity in life courses is an important stimulus for redesigning and modernising social security systems. A number of measures, such as leave arrangements, have been introduced in the past. These measures allow employees to make combinations and transitions and enable them to deal with the risks associated with these transitions, for example, a reduction in income or a loss of social security entitlements. However, there has been little empirical analysis of the effectiveness of these arrangements from a life course perspective. This paper examines one specific arrangement, namely the facility of care credits (in Dutch: ‘verzorgingsforfait’) in unemployment insurance. The aim of this provision is to amend the entitlement conditions for unemployment insurance benefit for people who have not worked for some time due to caring for young children. With these credits the period interrupted for care of children is equated with a period of actual work. The care credits were introduced in 1987, but partially abolished in 2004. The main argument for abolition was a change in womens labour market participation behaviour; women no longer interrupt their careers following childbirth, they adjust their working hours. For this reason, it is argued that the need for care credits no longer exists. This conclusion, however, has not been corroborated by empirical evidence. To fill this gap, we present an empirical analysis of the effectiveness of care credits. We use panel data of the Institute of Labour Studies (OSA), for the period 1990–2002. The results show that the importance of this arrangement has in fact not declined for women. Furthermore, from the data we can conclude that these care credits are particularly important for women with low educational qualifications and women with two or more children.