Advocates of a universal child care system offer a two-fold argument: Child care facilitates children's long-run development, and levels the playing field by benefiting in particular disadvantaged children. Therefore, a critical element in evaluating universal child care systems is to measure...

The incidence of Cesarean deliveries (CDs) has been on the rise. The procedure's cost and benefits are discussed controversially; in particular, since non-medically indicated cases seem widespread. We study the effect of CDs on subsequent fertility and maternal labor supply. Identification is...

This paper examines the causal effects of a major change in the German parental leave benefit scheme on fertility. I use the unanticipated reform in 2007 to assess how a move from a means-tested to an earnings-related benefit affects higher-order births. By using the German Mikrozensus 2010, I...

Using Bulgarian Integrated Household Surveys for 1995, 1997 and 2001 this paper explores determinants of labor force status – not working, public sector employment, private sector employment and self-employment – and earnings for each of the three employment sectors. We find that while...

We study the effect of the size of the welfare state on family outcomes in OECD member countries. Exploiting exogenous variation in public social spending, due to varying degrees of political fractionalization (i.e. the number of relevant parties involved in the legislative process), we show...

This paper examines the effect of a nationwide healthcare reform implemented in Turkey on women's fertility decisions. The Family Medicine Program (FMP), introduced in 2005, provided a wide-range of primary healthcare services, free of charge, and achieved universal access by matching each...

Maternity leave policies are presumed to be essential to ensure the health of pregnant workers and their unborn children. However, little is known about the optimal duration of prenatal maternity leave and existing policies are not evidence-based. We evaluate a substantial maternity leave...

Child care subsidies play a critical role in facilitating the transition of disadvantaged mothers from welfare to work. However, little is known about the influence of these policies on children's health and well-being. In this paper, we study the impact of subsidy receipt on low-income...

Numerous papers report a negative association between parental divorce and child outcomes. To provide evidence whether this correlation is driven by a causal effect, we exploit idiosyncratic variation in the extent of sexual integration in fathers' workplaces: Fathers who encounter more women in...