Family-Friendly Workplace Policies

Julian Costas-Fernandez, Sebastian Findeisen, Anna Raute and Uta Schönberg

No 26141, RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series from ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin)

Abstract: This paper examines firms' incentives to provide workplace amenities, focusing on employer-provided childcare, and the implications for gender inequality. Using rich matched employer-employee data linked to a comprehensive firm survey in Germany, we document substantial and persistent effects of employer-provided childcare on mothers' labor market trajectories. Firms that offer childcare experience higher retention rates and notably shorter career interruptions among first-time mothers, especially those with high pre-birth wages, resulting in meaningful reductions in child penalties of 4.7 percentage points for high-wage mothers. The adoption of firm provided childcare is also associated with stronger employment growth -particularly among mothers and female talent in high-wage occupations-without systematic adverse wage effects for women or mothers. Our findings align with models of imperfect competition, indicating that firms with greater monopsony power have stronger incentives to provide valuable workplace amenities. While firm-provided childcare plays a critical role in reducing gender gaps within firms, our findings also show that access to these benefits is uneven, widening disparities among women and mothers across firms.

Keywords: gender gaps; childcare; workplace amenities; child penalty; monopsony (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J16 J23 J32 J42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
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Working Paper: Family-Friendly Workplace Policies (2026)
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