Overall, children in Germany live in households with below average incomes; therefore social policies that address the vulnerable position of Germany's children are necessary. These policies should cover targeted financial transfers as well as improvements in day care provision for children....

Based on the hypothesis that microdata are of crucial importance for internationally competitive economic research and scientific advice in economic and social policy, the authors develop various proposals for an improved data supply for empirical work in Germany. Present shortcomings are mainly...

Using panel data for West Germany and Great Britain, we show that there are striking differences in overtime work and overtime compensation in the two countries in the 1990s. Our estimates reveal that the observed overtime patterns affect both the evolution of the monthly labour earnings...

In general child care subsidies are widely accepted as a means to create equal chances for mothers in the labour market as well as for children. Although there is a general consensus that the use of child care should be publicly supported, there is no consensus on how this should be done....