Having a child: A penalty or bonus for mother's and father's employment in Europe?

Leila Maron () and Danièle Meulders ()
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Danièle Meulders: DULBEA, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels

No 08-05.RS, Working Papers DULBEA from Université libre de Bruxelles, Department of Applied Economics (DULBEA)

Abstract: In this paper, we aim to study the impact of the presence of young children in the home on mother's and father's employment patterns. The results show that motherhood has an important and negative impact on labour market participation both in terms of part-time and inactivity and the child effect decreases with the age of the youngest child. As far as men are concerned, regression results show that the link between fatherhood and men's hours worked tends to be reversed in comparison with women (fathers work more hours than their childless counterparts) and suggest that men assume their good-provider role.

Keywords: parenthood; female participation; labour market conditionsdual-earner couples; work effort (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J21 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap and nep-lab
Date: 2008-03
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dul:wpaper:08-05rs

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