Squeezing Birth into Working Life: Household Panel Data Analyses Comparing Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands

Increasingly, young women throughout Europe educate themselves for a life-long labour market career. So, where does birth fit into a young woman's curriculum vitae? This book takes a welfare state comparative perspective on this issue, analyzing relevant macro policies from four countries whose political views on the combination of work and family differ, namely Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden. The effects of these macro policies on the micro economic labour market and fertility behaviour are also examined using household panel data from each country. For this purpose, all available information from the four countries has been organized into fertility and work histories on a month-to-month basis around the date of giving birth. Within the welfare state comparative framework, hypotheses on women's labour market transitions in connection with childbirth, women's share in joint family earnings around the birth of the first and the second child, the timing of having a first and subsequent child are derived from economic theory on human capital and labour supply. The quantitative analyses present substantial differences between the countries in women's labour force attachment and earnings in the period of childbearing which can be explained by the macro policy differentials. The differences in the timing of first births are much smaller. By analyzing women's potential earnings curves and women's wages, labour force participation and hours of work after giving birth, the gain in lifetime earnings by postponement of maternity is put forward comparing the 1980s and 1990s.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Introduction: subject relevance; positioning in the scientific field; data; outline. Part 2 Breadwinner ideology against individual and equal role-sharing ideology: introduction; social policy ideologies 1 - principle of need, market work performance and citizenship; social policy ideologies 2 - principles of maintenance and care; actual public policies on the family; conclusions. Part 3 Creating comparative fertility and work files from household panel data sets: introduction; description of household panel data sets; birth events in a woman's life; labour market histories around births; finding husbands and/or cohabiting men; earnings of women and men around the date of having children; comparing education across countries; comparing years of experience in paid work between countries; conclusions. Part 4 Women's labour force transitions in connection with childbirth: introduction; labour force participation before entering motherhood; homemakers and market career women; the timing of entering the labour force after birth; conclusions. Part 5 Women's share in earnings before and after the birth of children: introduction; data and definition of variables; women's contribution to family income; an explanation of the change in earnings around childbirth; decomposition of after-birth's earnings - a comparison between Germany and Sweden using simulations; concluding remarks. Part 6 Paid careers and the timing and spacing of births in Germany, Great Britain and Sweden: introduction; theoretical considerations on timing and spacing of births; effects of family policies on timing and spacing of children in Germany, United Kingdom and Sweden; data and comparability of variable definitions across countries; who postpones first birth?; clustering births or second career break?; conclusions. Part 7 Optimal age at maternity in the Netherlands: introduction; women's education, labour force participation, hours of work and fertility; theoretical considerations on optimal age at maternity; wages of future mothers; simulations of lifetime earnings loss of timing of maternity; lifetime earnings gain by postponement of first birth; conclusions.