Julia Bredtmann

Husband’s Unemployment and Wife’s Labor Supply – The Added Worker Effect across Europe

This paper investigates the responsiveness of women’s labor supply to their husband’s loss of employment – the so-called added worker effect. While previous empirical literature on this topic mainly concentrates on a single country, we take an explicit internationally comparative perspective and analyze whether the added worker effect varies across the European countries. In doing so, we use longitudinal data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) covering the period 2004 to 2011. For our pooled sample of 28 European countries, we find evidence for the existence of an added worker effect, both at the extensive and at the intensive margin of labor supply. Women whose husbands become unemployed have a higher probability of entering the labor market and changing from part-time to full-time employment than women whose husbands remain employed. However, our results further reveal that the added worker effect varies over both the business cycle and the different welfare regimes within Europe.

Women's Fertility and Employment Decisions under Two Political Systems - Comparing East and West Germany before Reunification

Over the last decades fertility rates have decreased in most developed countries, while female labour force participation has increased strongly over the same time period. To shed light on the relationship between womens fertility and employment decisions, we analyse their transitions to the first, second, and third child as well as their employment discontinuities following childbirth. Using new longitudinal datasets that cover the work and family life of women in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) allows for taking into account two political regimes and drawing conclusions about the relevance of institutional factors for fertility and employment decisions. Our results suggest that in both parts of Germany womens probability of having a first child is negatively correlated with both employment and educational achievement. Regarding second and third birth risks, this negative correlation weakens. Analysing womens time spent out of the labour market following childbirth we find that in the East almost all mothers return to work within 18 months after birth. In the West, however, this proportion is much smaller and at the age when the child starts nursery school or school, women re-enter the labour market at higher rates. These results point to a strong influence of institutional circumstances, specifically the extent of public daycare provision. A multivariate analysis reveals a strong correlation between a womans employment status prior to birth and her probability of re-entering the labour market afterwards.

Time vs. Money: The Supply of Voluntary Labor and Charitable Donations Across Europe

Volunteering plays a prominent role in the charitable provision of goods and services, yet we know relatively little about why individuals spend time and money to the charity. Assuming that volunteering is a consumption good, we analyze the determinants of individuals’ charitable cash donations and volunteer labor as well as the interdependence between both goods. Using data from the European Social Survey, we find a positive relationship between time and money contributions on the individual as well as on the country level. The hypothesis that time and money donations are gross complements, however, is not supported by our analysis, as we find evidence that individuals substitute time donations by money donations as the price of time raises. Analyzing philanthropic behavior on a disaggregated level reveals large differences in the determinants and the relationship of time and money donations – both across different types of voluntary organizations and across different welfare regimes.

Husband’s Unemployment and Wife’s Labor Supply: The Added Worker Effect across Europe:

This paper investigates the responsiveness of womens labor supply to their husbands job loss – the so-called added worker effect. We contribute to the literature by taking an explicit internationally comparative perspective and analyze the variation of the added worker effect across welfare regimes. Using longitudinal data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) covering 28 European countries from 2004 to 2013, we find evidence for the existence of an added worker effect. However, our results also reveal that the added worker effect varies over both the business cycle and the different welfare regimes within Europe.

Getting what (employers think) you’re worth

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the gender wage differential of labor market entrants and the determinants of their starting wages. Design/methodology/approach – The paper makes use of a unique data set on graduates in economics from a large German university that contains detailed information on the graduates’ course of study, their additional qualifications and their transition from university to the labor market. Based on these data, Mincer-type earnings functions as well as wage decompositions as proposed by Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973) are performed. Findings – The paper finds a significant gender wage differential of 7 percent. Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions suggest that the major part of this gap remains unexplained by gender differences in observable characteristics. Research limitations/implications – The main feature of our analysis – having a highly homogeneous sample of graduates from a single university – comes at the costs of reduced ability to draw...

Less alimony after divorce: Spouses' behavioral response to the 2008 alimony reform in Germany

The 2008 alimony reform in Germany considerably reduced post-marital and caregiver alimony. We analyze how individuals adapted to these changed rulings in terms of labor supply, the intra-household allocation of leisure, and marital stability. We use the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and conduct a difference-in-difference analysis to investigate couples behavioral responses to the reform. The results do not confirm theoretical expectations from labor supply and household bargaining models. In particular, we do not find evidence that women increase their labor supply as a result of the negative expected income effect. Neither do our results reveal that leisure is shifted from women to men as a response to the changed bargaining positions. In contrast, we find evidence that the reform has led to an increase in the probability to separate for married as opposed to non-married cohabiting couples.

Die Rolle befristeter Beschäftigung in Europa

Zusammenfassung: Befristete Verträge werden in vielen Ländern der Europäischen Union als Instrument, Arbeitsmärkte flexibel zu gestalten, eingesetzt. Ein internationaler Vergleich zeigt, dass die befristete Beschäftigung nur bedingt die Durchlässigkeit der Arbeitsmärkte unterstützt. Zwar erleichtert sie teilweise den Arbeitsmarktzugang, führt aber auch zu instabilen Beschäftigungsverhältnissen und segmentierten Arbeitsmärkten, die mit einer geringen Sprungbrettfunktion der befristeten Beschäftigung einhergehen. Um nachhaltige Beschäftigung zu schaffen, erscheinen Reformen des Kündigungsschutzes, die Übergänge in reguläre Jobs erleichtern, sowie Investitionen in Aus- und Weiterbildung als sinnvolle Alternativen.

The Effect of Gender Equality on International Soccer Performance

In this paper, we propose a new estimation strategy that uses the variation in success between the male and the female national soccer team within a country to identify the causal impact of gender equality on womens soccer performance. In particular, we analyze whether within-country variations in labor force participation rates and life expectancies between the genders, which serve as measures for the countryOs gender equality, are able to explain differences in the international success of male and female national soccer teams. Our results reveal that differences in male and female labor force participation rates and life expectancies are able to explain the international soccer performance of female teams, but not that of male teams, suggesting that gender equality is an important driver of female sport success.