The effects of family policy on maternal labor supply: Combining evidence from a structural model and a quasi-experimental approach

Abstract

Parental leave and subsidized child care are prominent examples of family policies supporting the reconciliation of family life and labor market careers for mothers. In this paper, we combine different empirical strategies to evaluate the employment effects of these policies for mothers with young children. In particular we estimate a structural labor supply model and exploit quasi-experimental variation from a parental leave reform in Germany. Our findings suggest that a combination of parental leave benefits and subsidized child care leads to sizable employment effects of mothers.