Parental leave length and mothers’ careers: what can be inferred from occupational allocation?

ABSTRACT

This paper shows that the time spent on parental leave affects mothers’ careers several years after childbirth. It also shows that policy-relevant conclusions can be drawn from occupational allocation data even in the absence of individual wage or earnings information. I take advantage of a legislative reform that changed the duration of parental benefit payments effective in the Czech Republic in 2008. Introducing the possibility of the flexible timing of benefit collection over the period of 2–4 years, as opposed to the only option of 4 years before, the reform significantly increased the share of mothers returning to work before their youngest child turns four. This further translates to increased representation of employed mothers in high-skilled occupations and increases the average occupation wage of the affected mothers 6 to 8 years after childbirth. These findings indicate that shorter leaves are beneficial for mothers’ careers, at least in the medium run.     

The Route Matters: Poverty and Inequality among Lone-Mother Households in Russia

Using the case of Russia, this paper takes issue with the stereotype of lone mothers as the poorest women in society, with the most disadvantaged children. Analysis of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey suggests there is enormous diversity in the material circumstances and livelihoods of lone mothers. Complementing the diversity of lone mothers' experiences is the finding that women who live with male partners, but who are responsible economically for their households, face problems much like those of lone mothers. The structural inequities that result from combining paid labor with unpaid care and childrearing have particularly adverse consequences for lone mothers and for women who bear the brunt of maintaining their households. While this analysis emphasizes the different aspects of the falsely homogenizing category “lone mother,” it also recognizes the structural disadvantages shared by lone mothers and other women in Russia today.     

Lone Mothers: What is to be done?

This Dialogue presents the views of four authors, from the US, the UK, and Norway, on the best policies to help lone mothers. Lone mothers face an inevitable dilemma in allocating their time between earning income and caring for their children. The low-earning capacity of women in an unequal labor market exacerbates the problem, causing material hardship for many lone mothers and their families. The policy solutions proposed lie along a spectrum, ranging from those that seek to enable all lone mothers to take employment to those that aim to let mothers choose whether to take employment or care for their children themselves. Other policies discussed concern ways to value and support caregiving, improve the low-wage labor market for women, and provide a set of income supports that would both boost income and provide time to care for children.     

Has Abe's Womanomics Worked?

The present paper estimates the effect of the Abe Cabinet's Womanomics policies that aimed to increase female labor supply and keep women on a career path. The policies are surveyed, and the effects are estimated using microdata from the Labor Force Survey combined with data at the prefectural level on day care provision. A difference‐in‐difference (DD) method is applied to uncover the impacts of the Abe Cabinet's policies. The rapid increase in the provision of infant care, especially in the urban area, has contributed to a strong increase in the labor participation of mothers with young children. In addition, DD method estimates show a strong increase in mothers with infants staying in permanent‐contract regular employment. A significant shortening of work hours of workers, especially of parents with infants, is observed, which enabled working mothers to maintain their employment status. A change in the gender wage gap in the Japanese labor market is observed, but much progress is still required to close the large wage gap.     

Disability Retirement in a Welfare State

The increasing number of disability pensioners may put a strain on the welfare state. In this paper, we try to assess the effect of financial incentives on disability entrance. A sample of Norwegians on long-term sick leave at the beginning of 1989 is examined as of the end of 1989, and the exit routes are studied in a multinomial logit model. The results indicate that the incentive effects of wages are larger than the disincentive effects of benefits. Furthermore, there is no evidence that having a subjective diagnosis affects the probability of becoming a disability pensioner.
JEL Classification : H 55; I 18; J 26     

Does paid family leave save infant lives? Evidence from California's paid family leave program

Paid family leave (PFL) aims to help working parents balance their careers and family responsibilities while also improving the well-being of infants. Using linked U.S. birth and infant death data with a difference-in-differences framework, I find that a 6-week PFL in California reduced the post-neonatal mortality rate by 0.135- that is, it saved approximately 339 infant lives. There were fewer deaths from health-related causes and larger effects for infants with married mothers and for infant boys. Additional checks and placebo examinations indicate that the observed effect is not due to contemporaneous shocks but rather is causal.     

Layoffs,recalls and unemployment duration: evidence from Sweden

The question addressed in this paper is whether the possibility of exit from unemployment to the previous employer affects the duration of unemployment spells in Sweden. The empirical analysis is performed using an employee–employer dataset that includes a number of enterprise characteristics and provides information on individual tenure. The econometric approach employs estimation of a competing risk duration model to distinguish between exits to the previous employer and exits to a new job. The findings suggest that greater tenure raises the risk of transition to the previous employer, while high education levels increase the risk of obtaining a new job. Moreover, the impact of benefit exhaustion is observed only for transitions to new employment.     

The wages of motherhood: better or worse?

Data from two British cohort studies show that women with childrenhave lower wages than childless women. We develop an innovativedecomposition of this 'family gap'. The crude pay gap betweenmothers and childless women in their thirties was similar in1978 and 1991, but low pay in part-time work became more importantin explaining this gap, and human capital less so. We find that,among full-time employees, women who broke their employmentat childbirth were subsequently paid less than childless women.In contrast, mothers who maintained employment continuity wereas well paid as childless women, but neither were as well remuneratedas men.     

Does paternity leave matter for female employment in developing economies? Evidence from firm-level data

Analysis using firm-level data for a sample of 33,302 firms in 53 developing countries shows that women’s employment among private firms is significantly higher in countries that mandate paternity leave versus those that do not. A conservative estimate suggests an increase of 6.8 percentage points in the proportion of women workers associated with mandating paternity leave. The empirical specification is immune to spurious correlations that affect the level of women and men employment equally and also robust to a large number of controls for country and firm characteristics.     

多元化战略、母子公司管控与企业绩效

多元化经营能帮助企业实现协同效应,进而提升企业绩效,但已有的实证研究大多得到与此相反的结果。通过问卷调查获取87家集团公司下属子公司的经营数据,检验企业多元化与母子公司管控(包括管控程度和管控方式)对企业绩效的交互效应。研究发现:实施多元化战略的公司对子公司采取正式管控会降低企业整体绩效;但母子公司管控程度与多元化经营的交互效应不显著。