One important incentive for a regional, decentralised university- and college structure is that higher education institutions should supply the local labour markets with sufficient high-educated labour. Local and regional recruitment to studies is expected to increase the probability that...

Being the first born of a family entails inherent responsibilities. Sociologists, psychologists and economists have long argued that the first born's receive differentiated treatment within the household. This paper tests and quantifies the existence of a disproportionate workload over the...

Can moving to an earnings-related parental leave system influence children s well-being and are heterogeneous effects on parents carried over to the entire family, making special groups of children worse off than others? To answer this question, this study exploits a large and unanticipated...

Many governments have introduced generous childcare subsidies to allow all children access to early childhood education. The effects of these costly programs are however still debated. In this paper, we use the introduction of free public childcare in several states in Germany to analyze its...

The effects of employment breaks on labor market outcomes are of great relevance in particular for females in relation with childbirth. In this paper we estimate the effect of the timing of women's first birth on later labor market outcomes, more precisely the effect on employment. In order to...

The present paper develops a general equilibrium model with overlapping generations and endogenous fertility in order to analyze the interaction between public policy and household labor supply and fertility decisions. The models benchmark equilibrium reflects the current family policy as well...

We analyze maternity leave durations, transition probabilities within a competing risks model and exit probabilities after maternity leave. Our sample exists of 1200 first-time mothers working in a large German company. With personnel data we observe employment histories with specific...

In Germany, it has become conventional wisdom that the economic uncertainty associated fixed-term employment contracts prevents young couples from realizing their desire to have children. From a research perspective, it is however far from clear whether fixed-term contracts are the obstacle to...