Johannes Ludsteck

Expansions in Maternity Leave Coverage and Mothers’ Labor Market Outcomes after Childbirth

This article analyzes the impact of five major expansions in maternity leave coverage in Germany on mothers’ labor market outcomes after childbirth. To identify the causal impact of the reforms, we use a difference-in-difference design that compares labor market outcomes of mothers who give birth shortly before and shortly after a change in maternity leave legislation in years of policy changes and years when no changes have taken place. Each expansion in leave coverage reduced mothers’ postbirth employment rates in the short run. The longer-run effects of the expansions on mothers’ postbirth labor market outcomes are, however, small.

Occupational upgrading and the business cycle in West Germany

The occupational skill structure depends on the business cycle if employers respond to shortages of applicants during upturns by lowering their hiring standards. The notion and relevance of hiring standards adjustment was advanced by Reder and investigated formally in a search-theoretic framework by Mortensen. Devereux implements empirical tests for these theories and finds affirmative evidence for the U.S. labour market. We replicate his analysis using German employment register data. Regarding the occupational skill composition we obtain somewhat lower but qualitatively similar responses to the business cycle despite of well known institutional differences between the U.S. and German labour market. The responsiveness of occupational composition wages to the business cycle is considerably lower in Germany.

Wage Assimilation of Foreigners: Which Factors Close the Gap? Evidence From Germany

This study analyzes the development of the wages of male foreign workers from all important sending countries across time using longitudinal employment register data. A cohort analysis of the individuals entering the German labor market in the years 1999 to 2001 indicates that the raw wage gap of migrants compared to native Germans decreases by 14 log percentage points in the first eight years. The results of a decomposition method based on fixed effects regression models give evidence that this wage adjustment is mostly due to time�?varying observable characteristics. Selective return migration, and the trend effects play no role for the aggregate. We find that wage assimilation happens mainly through three channels: first, through the accumulation of firm�?specific human capital, which explains approximately 40 percent; second, search gains are approximately the same order of magnitude; and third, the accumulation of general human capital explains one�?fifth of the assimilation. We further demonstrate that the importance of these channels differs substantially by the origin groups.