The Employment of Married Mothers in Great Britain: 1974 - 2000

Paul Gregg, Maria Gutierrez-Domenech and Jane Waldfogel ()

The Centre for Market and Public Organisation from The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK

Abstract: This paper analyses the increase in mother’s employment in Britain over the period 1974-2000. The approach consists of isolating those whose birth cohorts whose mothers experienced significant increases in employment and relating those to changes in policies (maternity rights, taxation and childcare). The results suggest that maternity rights have induced a change in behaviour toward returning to work in the first year post-birth, among many mothers who would otherwise gone back to work when their children were age 3-5. This effect has been most marked among better educated and higher paid mothers and has strengthen as real wages have risen through time. However, the paper also suggests that the increased labour market experience and job tenure of mothers as a result of maternity rights legislation has only had a very modest impact on earnings. This is as a result of most of the extra experience being part-time which has very low returns.

Keywords: married women's employment; maternity policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J10 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2003-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mfd
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Employment of Married Mothers in Great Britain, 1974–2000 (2007)
Working Paper: The Employment of Married Mothers in Great Britain: 1974-2000 (2003)
Working Paper: The employment of married mothers in Great Britain: 1974-2000 (2003)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bri:cmpowp:03/078

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