scholarly journals The expansion of low-cost, state-subsidised childcare availability and mothers’ return-to-work behaviour in East and West Germany

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gundula Zoch ◽  
Irina Hondralis
Keyword(s):  
Return To Work ◽  
Maternal Employment ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Second Child ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Level Data ◽  
East And West

This study investigates whether increased availability of low-cost, state-subsidised childcare for under-three-year-olds in Germany is associated with shorter employment interruptions amongst mothers. By focusing on a major childcare reform in East and West Germany, we examine the effect in two contexts that differ markedly in the acceptance and use of formal childcare and maternal employment. We combine rich longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (2006 to 2014) with annual administrative county-level data on the availability of low-cost, state-subsidised childcare, estimating event history models. The results indicate that increased childcare availability for under-three-year-olds reduces mothers’ employment interruptions, particularly after a second childbirth, and increases the probability of returning to part-time or full-time employment as opposed to marginal employment. Furthermore, increased availability of low-cost, state-subsidised childcare increases mothers’ likelihood of returning to employment in the second year after childbirth, when paid leave entitlements expire and the availability of childcare becomes important. However, our results are only statistically significant for West German mothers and only after the birth of a second child. The study extends the literature on women’s return-to-work behaviour by providing evidence on the medium-term impact of family policy on the duration of mothers’ employment interruptions.

scholarly journals Public childcare provision and employment participation of East and West German mothers with different educational backgrounds

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-385
Author(s):  
Gundula Zoch
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Employment ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Educational Backgrounds ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Employment Participation ◽  
East And West

By focusing on a period of a major public childcare expansion in Germany, this study investigates whether higher levels of childcare coverage for under-threes have been positively associated with employment among mothers with different educational backgrounds. Both standard economic labour theories and sociological theories presume that the effect of public childcare provision varies with mothers’ educational attainment. The analysis links county-level data on annual childcare ratios with individual-level data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study (2007–2016). To match mothers with similar characteristics in counties with childcare ratios above and below the annual median within East and West Germany, entropy balancing is applied. Findings indicate a positive relationship between childcare provision and maternal employment, with more pronounced associations for mothers with at least a vocational degree, those with a second birth and those who receive full-time access to childcare.

scholarly journals Public Childcare Provision and Employment Participation of East and West German Mothers with different Educational Backgrounds

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gundula Zoch
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Employment ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Educational Backgrounds ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Employment Participation ◽  
East And West

By focusing on a period of a major public childcare expansion in Germany, this study investigates whether higher levels of childcare coverage for under-threes have been positively associated with employment among mothers with different educational backgrounds. Both standard economic labour theories and sociological theories presume that the effect of public childcare provision varies with mothers’ educational attainment. The analysis links county-level data on annual childcare ratios with individual-level data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study (2007-2016). To match mothers with similar characteristics in counties with childcare ratios above and below the annual median within East and West Germany, entropy balancing is applied. Findings indicate a positive relationship between childcare provision and maternal employment, with more pronounced associations for mothers with at least a vocational degree, those with a second birth, and those who receive full-time access to childcare.

scholarly journals Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall - Do East and West Germans still differ in their attitudes towards women’s employment and the division of housework?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gundula Zoch
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Maternal Employment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Female Employment ◽  
Gender Ideologies ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
East West

Previous cross-sectional studies show less traditional gender ideologies among East Germans after German reunification and even suggest slightly increasing East-West disparities. These findings challenge the assumptions of stable ideologies over the life-course as well as cohort replacement-based convergence over time. This study expands on previous research by analysing differences and trends in gender ideologies in the context of East and West Germany using data from the German Family Panel pairfam (2008-2018). It distinguishes between three cohorts born in the early 1970s, 1980s and 1990s who have different socialisation experiences before and after reunification. The results show smaller East-West differences in gender ideologies for the youngest cohort compared with larger gaps for the two older cohorts born before reunification. Convergence of ideologies is partly due to modernisation trends in West Germany and re-traditionalisation effects in East Germany across cohorts, but also due to attitudinal changes with age. Attitudes towards housework and female employment have particularly converged, while views on maternal employment and the consequences for children’s well-being continue to differ between East and West Germany. The findings underline the importance of persistent, long-lasting ideology differences due to the regime‐specific socialisation and composition resulting from the division of Germany, but also emphasizes the role of ideology change across cohorts and over the life-course for the overall converging trends in gender ideologies.

scholarly journals Convergence or Divergence? Educational Discrepancies in Work-Care Arrangements of Mothers with Young Children in Germany

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 629-649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliane Frederike Stahl ◽  
Pia Sophia Schober
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Care Patterns ◽  
East And West

This study examines how educational differences in work-care patterns among mothers with young children in Germany changed between 1997 and 2013. Since the mid-2000s, Germany has undergone a paradigm shift in parental leave and childcare policies. Our comparative analysis of East and West Germany provides new evidence on whether the long-standing gender regime differences interact with recent developments of social class inequalities in the changing family policy context. The analyses include pooled binary and multinomial logistic regressions based on 17,764 observations of 8604 children below the age of three years from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). The findings point to growing educational divergence in work-care arrangements in East and West Germany: employment and day-care use increased more strongly among families with medium and highly educated mothers compared to those with low education. This has critical implications for the latter’s economic security. The decline in the use of informal childcare options was, however, fairly homogenous.

scholarly journals Introduction: Burdens and Beginnings: Rebuilding East and West Germany after Nazism

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-293
Author(s):  
Karen Hagemann ◽  
Konrad H. Jarausch ◽  
Tobias Hof
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
West Germany ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East And West ◽  
New Beginnings ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThe introduction discusses the state of the current research on the post-1945 history of East and West Germany, explains the agenda of the special issue and discusses its main topics. The focus is the politics of survival in the chaos of collapse and the controversial debates about the agenda of the reconstruction. In these discussions different visions competed, from the restoration of traditions to efforts of a post-fascist modernization. The introduction questions the postwar success narrative by discussing the “burdens” of the Nazi past, such as Nazi perpetrators, displaced people, expellees and refugees, including the returning German-Jewish survivors. It also engages with the problems of the Cold War division by exploring the “new beginnings”, which were debated in relation to the past of Nazi, Weimar, and Imperial Germany, among them: cultural diplomacy, welfare policy and eldercare, family policy and gender roles, and popular culture. The essay calls for more comparative and transnational research of the postwar era, especially in the areas of the integration into the Cold War blocs, the postwar shifting of borders and peoples, narratives of victimhood, and memory tropes about the war and postwar.

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