Child birth leads to a break in a woman's employment history and is considered one reason for the relatively poor labor market outcomes observed for women compared to men. However, the time spent at home after child birth varies significantly across mothers and is likely driven by observed and,...

This paper discusses random intercept selection within the context of semiparametric regression models with structured additive predictor (STAR). STAR models can deal simultaneously with nonlinear covariate effects and time trends, unit- or cluster-specific heterogeneity, spatial heterogeneity...