In-work support through the tax-benefit system has proved to be an effective way of increasing the labor supply of lone mothers and first earners in couples in a number of OECD countries. At the same time, these instruments usually create negative employment incentives for secondary earners....

This paper examines the effects of a substantial change in publicly funded paid parental leave in Germany on child development and socio-economic development gaps. For children born before January 1, 2007, parental leave benefits were means-tested and paid for up to 24 months after childbirth....

We study the design of parental leave systems through the lens of an estimated model of parents’ joint willingness to pay for parental leave. We estimate the model using Danish register data on almost 200,000 births combined with sharp variation in economic incentives created by the parental...

This paper examines the effect of economic incentives generated by U.S. divorce and custody law on a range of child health and human capital measures. State laws vary widely in the treatment of child support under joint custody. While some states require no child support in joint custody cases,...

Using a semiparametric event study approach with a control group, we estimate the effect of motherhood on labor market outcomes in Germany, the child penalty. We further investigate how the 2007 parental benefits reform changed the child penalty while accounting for fertility effects. A large...

In 2016 the Polish government introduced a large new child benefit, called "Family 500+", with the aim to increase 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...

While acknowledging the importance of fairness and the need to avoid creating disincentives in the design of tax reform, the Henry Review recommends a simplified Personal Income Tax and child payments withdrawn on a single family income test. This paper shows that the proposed reforms would...

Low female labor force participation and low fertility rates in OECD countries, especially in Southern European countries, have raised a great deal of concern in recent years. As a means to reconcile work and family, Spain (one of the countries with the lowest female participation and lowest...

This paper considers the effect of child care costs on two labor market outcomes for single mothers - whether to participate in the labor market and whether to receive welfare. Hourly child care expenditures are estimated for all women in the sample (using data drawn from the 1992 and 1993...

Childcare policies play a crucial role in helping parents reconcile care and employment related tasks. This paper quantifies the net cost of purchasing full-time centre-based childcare in OECD countries taking into account a wide range of influences on household budgets, including fees charged...