The Heterogeneous Impact of Children on Maternal Employment: Evidence From East and West Germany

Johannes Köckeis and Sven Stöwhase

Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, 2026, vol. 34, issue 2, 339-358

Abstract: This study investigates the causal effect of fertility on female labour market outcomes in East and West Germany. We use twin births as an exogenous variation for family size. Our results suggest a negative relationship between the number of children and maternal labour market outcomes. However, this connection is significantly stronger in West Germany than in East Germany for the second and third child. By the fourth child, the effects in the two parts of the country become more similar. Further subgroup analyses suggest that these differences can be explained by regional institutional conditions, such as the availability of public childcare facilities, and to a lesser extent by attitudes towards working mothers.

Date: 2026
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.70014

Related works:
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:wly:ectrin:v:34:y:2026:i:2:p:339-358

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics of Transition and Institutional Change from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().