We draw lessons from existing work and our own analysis on the effects of parental leave and other interventions aimed at aiding families. The outcomes of interest are female employment, gender gaps in earnings and fertility. We begin with a discussion of the historical introduction of family...

Utilizing linked vital statistics, administrative employer, and state welfare records, the analysis in this paper investigates the determinants of a woman's intermittent labor force decision at the time of a major life event: the birth of a child. The results indicate that both direct and...

This paper uses unique administrative data to expand the understanding of the role women's intermittency decisions play in the determination of their wages. We demonstrate that treating intermittency as exogenous significantly overstates its impact. The intermittency penalty also increases in...

This study analyzes the effect of all-day (AD) primary school programs on maternal labor supply. To account for AD school selectivity and selection into AD primary school programs I estimate bivariate probit models. To identify these models I exploit variation in the allocation of investments to...

The increased demand for a more equal parental sharing of the responsibilities for children has led many countries to reconstruct their parental leave systems so to provide stronger incentives for fathers to participate in childcare. Father's quotas are becoming widely spread across Europe. This...

Process benefit scores indicates that time with own children is preferred before all other activities, closely followed by market work. The trade-off between parents' time with their own kids and market work, and its dependence on out-of-home day-care is analyzed in a simultaneous equation...

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...

Using population wide register data, I exploit the "speed premium" rule in the Swedish parental leave system to estimate the causal effect of a change in the level of benefits per day on the utilization of parental leave. The results show that a 1% (5 SEK ≈ $0.54) increase in the mother's...

This paper introduces a new IV strategy based on IVF (in vitro fertilization) induced fertility variation among childless women to estimate the causal effect of having children on their career. For this purpose, we use administrative data on IVF treated women in Denmark. Because observed chances...

We use quasi-random variation in graduation years during the onset of a very deep national recession to study the relationship between early labor market conditions and young females' family formation outcomes. A policy-pilot affecting the length of upper-secondary education in Swedish...