Economic theory suggests that incentives matter for people's decisions. This paper investigates whether this also holds … government changed its parental benefit system January 1, 2007. The policy change strongly increased economic incentives for … women to postpone delivery to the new year provided that they were employed. The incentives for women not employed were not …

fertility and reduce child poverty. It is universal for the second and every further child and means-tested for the first child …

fertility from a low level and reduce child poverty. The benefit is universal for the second and every further child and means …-tested for the first child. Increasing out-of-work income significantly, the transfer can reduce incentives to participate in the …

was to decrease birth-related maternal employment breaks by providing more generous parental benefits for a shorter period … benefits to estimate the impact of the reform. I incorporated the mother’s decision to substitute her care time with the public … participation during the first year of leave and an increase in employment probability after the benefits expired. The empirical …

characteristics and fertility history from different countries and, consequently, under different parental leave regulations. Results …

Based on a structural model of fertility and female labour force supply with unobserved heterogeneity and state … dependence, we evaluate the 2007 reform of parental leave benefits in Germany, which replaced a flat, means-tested benefit by a … generous earnings-related transfer. The model predicts a short-term fertility effect of about 4%, which is consistent with …

We estimate a structural life-cycle model of fertility and female labour supply and use it to evaluate the effects of a … number of key family policy measures based on data for Germany. Parental leave benefits, child benefits and subsidized … childcare are found to have substantial fertility effects. Without these measures, completed fertility is estimated to be lower …

We study the causal effects of changes in parental leave provisions on fertility and return-to-work behavior. We … child's first to the child's second birthday. As parental leave benefits can be automatically renewed when a new mother is … planned children and/or to increase fertility. We study the quantitative effect of this incentive using an empirical strategy …

We study the causal effects of changes in parental leave provisions on fertility and return-to-work behavior. We … child's first to the child's second birthday. As parental leave benefits can be automatically renewed when a new mother is … planned children and/or to increase fertility. We study the quantitative effect of this incentive using an empirical strategy …