The Effect of Child Care Provision on Fertility and Female Labor Supply
Many Southern and Central European countries have struggled for years with fertility rates well below the replacement ratio, as well as with relatively low rates of female labor market participation. Increasing the supply of publicly provided child care seems like a natural policy for addressing these issues, and has been recently promoted by the German government. In fact, the Scandinavian countries seem to follow this route successfully. However, establishing causality in this relationship is difficult: are more public child care center spots provided in periods or countries when and where changing norms encourage women to have more children and, at the same time, to participate more in the labor market, or does the creation of public child care centers increase fertility and female labor market participation?
This project explores the experience of East Germany after German reunification. During Communism, mothers were encouraged to return to work after birth, while on the other hand the West German culture encouraged women to stay at home with their children. After 1990, many of the abundant public child care centers in the East were closed, and this paper analyzes the effects of these closings on fertility and female labor market participation. There are two major advantages of studying the East German experience. First, there is large regional variation in the scope and timing of the closings of child care centers. Second, to establish causality instrumental variables from the institutional environment before 1990 were used.
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People in this project:
- Project director / contact
- Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola, Prof. Dr. | Profile
- Project members
- Bick, Alexander, Dr. rer. pol. | Profile
Publications of this project
- Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola (2009): Introduction: A Symposium on the East German Labour Market,
Economics of Transition, 17(3), 2009, 625-628
Details - Fuchs-Schündeln, Nicola; Schündeln, Matthias (2009): Who Stays, Who Goes, Who Returns?
East-West Migration within Germany since Reunification, Economics of Transition, 17(3),
2009, 703-738
Details
Clémentine Deliss and Juliane Rebentisch discuss the role of art in politics and society. The third Frankfurter Stadtgespräch of the Cluster of Excellence and Frankfurter Kunstverein will take place on September 16. 
