Couples’ Parental Leave-Taking and Subsequent Labour Market Participation of Mothers and Fathers

Corinna Frodermann, Institute for Employment Research
Andreas Filser , Institute for Employment Research (IAB)
Ann-Christin Bächmann , Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories

In Germany, the transition to parenthood often leads to a (re-)traditionalization of the division of labour in partnerships. After childbirth, mothers typically interrupt their careers to take care of their child, while fathers remain in the labour market. The 2007 parental leave reform aims to counteract this gendered division of paid and unpaid work by incentivizing higher involvement of fathers in childcare. Studies so far have focused on the individual-level characteristics of fathers associated with paternal leave uptake as well as the association between couple’s characteristics and the division of parental leave. However, evidence on the consequences of parental leave arrangements for either partner’s employment trajectory remains limited so far. In this paper, we use novel employment register data to explore the consequences of parental leave uptake from a couple perspective. The data derives from the Integrated Employment Biographies (IEB) and contains the employment trajectories of 1 million cohabiting married couples preceding and following the birth of their first child. The linked structure of our data allows us to study spill-over-effects from either partners’ employment interruption to the other partners’ employment trajectory. Preliminary results reveal that fathers’ parental leave take-up essentially only started following the 2007 reform. Ongoing analyses focus on employment constellations of both parents five years after childbirth to investigate the long-term consequences of parental leave uptake.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 61. Work and the family