We analyse a model in which families may either be “traditional” single-earner with caring for the child at home or “modern” double-earner households using market child care. Family policies may favour either the one or the other group, like market care subsidies vs. cash for care....

Parental leave and child care are important instruments of family policies to improve work– family balance. This paper studies the impact of the substantial change in Germany’s parental leave system on maternal employment. The aim of the reform was to decrease birth-related maternal...

In a model with endogenous fertility and labor supply three instruments of family policies are analyzed: child benefits, subsidies for external child care, and parental leave payments. We compare the impact on the quantity and quality of children, the secondary earner's labor supply and welfare....

We analyse a model in which families may either be “traditional” single-earner with caring for the child at home or “modern” double-earner households using market child care. Family policies may favour either the one or the other group, like market care subsidies vs. cash for care....

In 2016, the Polish government introduced a large child benefit, called "Family 500+", with the aim to increase fertility and reduce child poverty. It is universal for the second and every further child and means-tested for the first child. We study the impact of the new benefit on female labor...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of the extended parental leave in the return to work for mothers of newborn children. Parental leaves have been introduced in the last 30 years in all European countries in order to extend the period of job-protection, allowing both parents to...

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...

We formalize and estimate the dynamic marginal efficiency cost of redistribution (MECR) in the spirit of Okun’s “leaky bucket” to compare the MECR of an income-contingent childcare subsidy program and of the income-contingent tax and transfer schedule. We set up a dynamic structural model...

We model choices between caring for an infant at home or through some market provision of child care. Maternal labor supply necessitates child care purchased in the market. Households are distinguished along three dimensions: (i) Exogenous income, (ii) the wage rate of the primary care giver and...