Women`s labor force transitions in connection with childbirth: A panel data comparison between Germany, Sweden and Great Britain

Siv Gustafsson, Shirley Dex, Cecile Wetzels () and Jan Dirk Vlasblom
Additional contact information
Shirley Dex: ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ, UK
Jan Dirk Vlasblom: Institute of Economics/CIAV, Utrecht University, Kromme Nieuwegracht 22, 3512 HH Utrecht, The Netherlands

Journal of Population Economics, 1996, vol. 9, issue 3, 223-246

Abstract: In this paper we make use of the panel aspects of the German GSOEP, the Swedish HUS and the British BHPS data. In these data sets we known month and year of childbirth and the month to month labor force status of the mother also before giving birth. This permits analysis of labor force transitions triggered by child births of different birth orders. From macro data Swedish women are known to have the highest labor force participation. The difference in total labor force participation of women is totally a result of fewer mothers entering the labor force and entering later in Germany and Great Britain than in Sweden. This paper shows that before birth of first child there is no such difference. We find that German and British women have even higher full-time labor force participation than Swedish women 12 months before the birth of the first child. The difference is more pronounced for second and third births than for first births. We suggest that these differences are caused by different family policy regimes where Germany can be characterized as a breadwinner regime and Sweden a regime oriented towards equal role sharing of father and mother. Our results on determinants of being in the labor force both after and before the birth of a child as well as determinants of the tempo of entering the labor force after birth shows that women`s own human capital is important both in Germany and Great Britain, whereas in Sweden also less educated women have entered the labor force by the time the child is 2 years old.

Keywords: Labor; force; participation; ·; childbirth; ·; labor; force; transitions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1996
Note: Received September 15, 1995 / Accepted June 18, 1996 received by the Swedish Council in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the EU Human Capital and Mobility (HCM) network for the Female Labour Force Participation Network within which framework this analysis has been carried out. Responsible editors: S.S. Gustafsson, John F. Ermisch.-->
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (100)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Women's Labor Force Transitions in Connection with Childbirth: A Panel Data Comparison between Germany, Sweden and Great Britain (1996)
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:spr:jopoec:v:9:y:1996:i:3:p:223-246

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... tion/journal/148/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Population Economics is currently edited by K.F. Zimmermann

More articles in Journal of Population Economics from Springer, European Society for Population Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().