The Short- and Long-Term Effects of Family-Friendly Policies on Mothers' Employment

Alicia de Quinto and Libertad Gonzalez

No 17509, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Countries often encourage part-time work among new parents as part of their family policies, aiming to foster mothers' labor market attachment. However, this approach may unintentionally impede women's long-term career prospects. We examine the impact of a 1999 Spanish reform that allowed parents to reduce their working hours by up to a half while their youngest child was under age 6, along with job protection measures. Leveraging eligibility rules, we follow a regression kink design, comparing ineligible women to mothers who had varying lengths of eligibility, and tracking their subsequent work trajectories. Our findings show that longer eligibility led to a modest increase in maternal part-time work during her child's early years, with mothers working approximately one additional day part-time for each extra month of eligibility. This increase in part-time work substituted for days spent in unemployment rather than reducing full-time work, leading to a rise in earnings. In the long term, extended eligibility also led to improvements in both employment and earnings. Overall, we find that the policy had a positive impact on the labor supply and earnings of women with children, both in the short and long term.

Keywords: worktime reduction; maternity; childcare policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J08 J13 J16 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2024-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-lab
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Journal Article: The short- and long-term effects of family-friendly policies on mothers’ employment (2025)
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