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Does Mothers’ Parental Leave Uptake Stimulate Continued Employment and Family Formation? Evidence for Belgium

Author

Listed:
  • Jonas Wood

    (Center for Population, Family and Health, University of Antwerp, B-2000 Antwerp, Belgium)

  • Karel Neels

    (Center for Population, Family and Health, University of Antwerp, B-2000 Antwerp, Belgium)

Abstract
Parental leave schemes undoubtedly facilitate the combination of work and family life during leave-taking. In addition to this instantaneous effect of parental leave uptake, a growing yet limited body of research addresses the question of subsequent effects of parental leave uptake. As work-family policies, such as parental leave, are geared towards stimulating family formation and (female) employment, this study assessed whether the individual uptake of parental leave by employed mothers after the birth of a child yielded differential parity progression and employment patterns compared to eligible employed mothers that did not take leave. Using data from the Belgian Administrative Socio-Demographic panel, we applied dynamic propensity score matching and hazard models. Our results indicate that previous leave uptake is a differentiating factor in subsequent fertility and employment outcomes, but also that (self-)selection strongly affects this relation. Descriptive analyses indicate that mothers who use leave shortly after childbearing exhibit a similar progression to second births, more third births and less fourth births, while displaying substantially lower hazards of exiting the labour force regardless of parity. However, when controlling for the fact that mothers who use parental leave exhibit a stronger pre-birth attachment to the labour force, work for larger employers in specific employment sectors, and also differ from non-users in terms of household characteristics (e.g., higher household income, more likely to be married and less likely to have a non-Belgian background), many associations between leave uptake and subsequent fertility and employment outcomes turn neutral or even negative. No indication for higher parity progression among leave users was found and the hazard of exiting the labour force was moderately higher for leave users. These empirical results are discussed in the Belgian context of low parental leave benefits, short leave entitlements and low uptake of parental leave, features which are also displayed by other Western European countries and contrast with the Nordic European countries studied in previous research.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonas Wood & Karel Neels, 2019. "Does Mothers’ Parental Leave Uptake Stimulate Continued Employment and Family Formation? Evidence for Belgium," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-24, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:8:y:2019:i:10:p:292-:d:278871
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Jonas Wood & Leen Marynissen & Dries Gasse, 2023. "When is it About the Money? Relative Wages and Fathers’ Parental Leave Decisions," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(6), pages 1-24, December.
    2. Raffaele Guetto & Giammarco Alderotti & Daniele Vignoli, 2023. "Can Policy Reforms Enhance Fertility? An Ex-Ante Evaluation through Factorial Survey Experiments," Econometrics Working Papers Archive 2023_08, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti".

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