Separate taxation and married women's labor supply: a comparison of West Germany and Sweden

Local Variation in Gendered Family Policy Use: Evidence of Local Gender Contracts?

A central and unique part of Sweden’s family policy programme is care leave that working parents can use when children are sick and cannot attend (pre)school. The gender-equal policy entails that parents may divide the leave as they see fit. However, mothers and fathers do not share care leave equally and care leave patterns may vary geographically. The aim of this paper is to examine the interaction between gendered care leave and geographical context using the theory of gender contracts. We ask how geographical variation in fathers’ share of care leave varies by scale, and how both individual factors and geographical determinants, representing local gender contracts, are associated with fathers’ share of care leave. Distinctive from previous work, we use geocoded full-population register data and individualized neighbourhoods at multiple scales in order to be able to better measure contextual effects on care leave use. We find substantial spatial variation in fathers’ share of care leave, with clustering depending on scale level. Using the nearest 200 fathers with young children, a factor analysis summarizes local gender contracts into three factors labelled as elite, marginalization and private sector. Results show that especially living in local gender contract areas identified as “marginalized” positively affects fathers’ share of care leave. Living in the most segregated neighbourhoods has substantial effects on fathers’ share of care leave, but overall, neighbourhood effects are moderate. A gender contract perspective shows negotiations resulting from locally clustered gendered norms and relative resources between partners influence who stays home with sick children.

The Making of a Good Woman: Extended Parental Leave Entitlements and Mothers' Work Commitment in Germany

The authors investigate the relationship between family policy and women's attachment to the labor market, focusing specifically on policy feedback on women's subjective work commitment. They utilize a quasi-experimental design to identify normative policy effects from changes in mothers' work commitment in conjunction with two policy changes that significantly extended the length of statutory parental leave entitlements in Germany. Using unique survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and difference-in-differences, triple-differenced, and instrumental variables estimators for panel data, they obtain consistent empirical evidence that increasing generosity of leave entitlements led to a decline in mothers' work commitment in both East and West Germany. They also probe potential mediating mechanisms and find strong evidence for role exposure and norm setting effects. Finally, they demonstrate that policy-induced shifts in mothers' preferences have contributed to. retarding women's labor force participation after childbirth in Germany, especially as far as mothers' return to full-time employment is concerned.