The Willingness to Pay for Job Amenities: Evidence from Mothers' Return to Work

Christina Felfe

No 247, SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: This study is the first to estimate mothers' marginal willingness to pay (MWP) for job amenities directly. Its identification strategy relies on German maternity leave length. The key aspect of the maternal leave framework is that mothers can decide whether and when to return to their guaranteed job. Thus, in contrast to previous studies that analyze the job search of employed workers, this framework allows us to overcome the limitation of not observing the wage/amenity offer process. A theoretical model of the leave length decision is derived from a random utility approach. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the Qualification and Career Survey, this model is estimated by a discrete duration method. The MWP for amenities can be inferred through the estimated elasticities of the leave length with respect to the amenities and the wage. The results provide evidence that mothers are willing to sacrifice a significant fraction of their wage to reduce hazards (20%) and to enjoy a flexible working schedule (44-56%).

Keywords: Marginal Willingness to Pay; Maternal Labor Supply; Discrete Duration Models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 J31 J33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 p.
Date: 2009
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.344909.de/diw_sp0247.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Willingness to Pay for Job Amenities: Evidence from Mothers' Return to Work (2012)
Working Paper: The Willingness to Pay for Job Amenities: Evidence from Mothers' Return to Work (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp247

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bibliothek ().