Can financial incentives reduce the baby gap? Evidence from a reform in maternity leave benefits

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Raute, Anna
• 署名单位: University of London; Queen Mary University London
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.07.010
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 203-222
• 关键词: fertility; Fertility gaps; Paid maternity leave; Opportunity cost

摘要

In this paper, I assess whether earnings-dependent maternity leave positively impacts fertility and narrows the baby gap between highly educated (high-earning) and less-educated (low-earning) women. I exploit a major maternity leave benefit reform in Germany that considerably increased the financial incentives, by up to 21,000 EUR, for highly educated and higher-earning women. Using the large differential changes in maternity leave benefits across education and income groups in a differences-in-differences design, I estimate the causal impact of the reform on fertility for up to 5 years. In addition to demonstrating an up to 23% increase in the fertility of tertiary-educated women, I find a positive, statistically significant effect of increased benefits on fertility, driven mainly by women at the middle and upper end of the earnings distribution. Overall, the results suggest that earnings-dependent maternity leave benefits, which compensate women according to their opportunity cost of childbearing, could successfully reduce the fertility rate disparity related to mothers' education and earnings. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.