Maternal Employment and Happiness: The Effect of Non-Participation and Part-Time Employment on Mothers' Life Satisfaction

Eva Berger

No 890, Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research

Abstract: In contrast to unemployment, the effect of non-participation and parttime employment on subjective well-being has much less frequently been the subject of economists' investigations. In Germany, many women with dependent children are involuntarily out of the labor force or in part-time employment because of family constraints (e.g., due to lack of available and appropriate childcare). Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) Study, this paper analyzes the impact of involuntary familyrelated non-participation and part-time employment on mothers' life satisfaction. Controlling for unobserved individual fixed effects, I find that both the pecuniary effects (foregone earnings) and the non-pecuniary effects (psychological costs) are significantly negative. Compensating income variations reveal that the residual household income would have to be raised by 182 percent (157 percent/77 percent) in order to just offset the negative effect of not being able to work because of family constraints (of being in short/long part-time employment). Moreover, in terms of overall happiness among mothers, non-participation is revealed to be a more serious problem than unemployment.

Keywords: Subjective well-being; life satisfaction; labor force participation; part-time; maternal employment; work-family conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 J21 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 p.
Date: 2009
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-lab and nep-ltv
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Maternal Employment and Happiness: The Effect of Non-Participation and Part-Time Employment on Mothers' Life Satisfaction (2009)
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