Moving to an Earnings-Related Parental Leave System – Do Heterogeneous Effects on Parents Make Some Children Worse Off?

82 Pages Posted: 6 Oct 2015

Date Written: September 22, 2015

Abstract

Can moving to an earnings-related parental leave system influence children’s well-being and are heterogeneous effects on parents carried over to the entire family, making special groups of children worse off than others? To answer this question, this study exploits a large and unanticipated parental leave reform in Germany as a natural experiment. By replacing a means-tested by an earnings-related system the reform affected different groups of families to a variable extent. I detect significant negative effects on the personality of newborns whose families are subject to a non-positive change in the overall benefit amount compared to the pre-reform situation. 2-3-year-old children belonging to the reform’s winners, however, improve their basic life skills and language skills.

Keywords: Children’s Well-Being, Parental Leave, Heterogeneous Effects

JEL Classification: J13, J18, J22

Suggested Citation

Huber, Katrin, Moving to an Earnings-Related Parental Leave System – Do Heterogeneous Effects on Parents Make Some Children Worse Off? (September 22, 2015). SOEPpaper No. 791, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2669315 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2669315

Katrin Huber (Contact Author)

University of Passau ( email )

Innstrasse 27
Passau, 94032
Germany

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
48
Abstract Views
559
PlumX Metrics