Abstract
Czech family policies have gone through dramatic changes since the 1989 transition to a market economy, resulting into the highest employment gap between women with and without pre-school children in OECD. This paper focuses on the 1995 Czech Parental Benefit reform which extended the payment of universal parental benefits to 4 years instead of 3 without an equivalent extension of job-protected parental leave, leaving to mothers the choice of either guaranteed return to employment or an additional 12 months of benefits. The study relies on a difference-in-differences strategy to assess the net effect of this large-scale reform on mothers’ labour market participation. I find a strong negative impact on mothers’ probability of return to work at the end of parental leave, with a heterogeneous size with respect to their educational attainment. I also find evidence of the persistence of this detrimental effect on mothers’ employment beyond the short-term horizon targeted by the legislators.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This study circulated between 2014 and 2016 under the title “Female Labour Supply in the Czech Transition: Effects of the Work-Life Conciliation Policies”, released as EconomiX Working Paper 2014-50.
The fertility in the 1960s also reflects the wide availability and affordability of birth control.
See Fig. 5 in Appendix.
Without counting pre-birth absence from employment, covered by the insurance-based maternity leave. Mothers who are ineligible for maternity leave fall directly under the universal parental leave and benefit status.
7907Kc, average monthly gross wage of employees in the civil sector of the national economy in 1995, provided by the Czech Statistical Office
The most common reasons for not returning to previous employment being the lack of suitable childcare, disagreements over return conditions such as unavailability of part-time contracts (Kucharova and Svobodova 2006), firm restructuring and redundancy dismissals, with a certain social acceptance of these practices by the returnee mothers (Hašková 2015). Related laws and practices somewhat improved in the recent decades under pressure from the EU (Haskova and Uhde 2011).
As Saxonberg (2013) suggested, “familialist” policy should rather be referred to as “maternalist”, since the stress is put on the mothers’ role as caregivers.
In addition to the transition to the age of 3, I identify in the same way mothers whose youngest child recently turned 4, 5 and 6, for complementary analysis and robustness checks.
See Table 8 (B and C) with summary statistics of the sample, in the Appendix.
The positive sign might be misleading, but the interpretation of the coefficient is the probability of employment in the reform cohort (1995–1996), taking the non-reform cohort as reference (1997–1998). The employment rates were higher in the first period, and for this reason the coefficient is positive.
The summary statistics for this cohort are reported along with the other cohorts in Table 8 (A) in the Appendix.
See the work and numerous public appearances of the influential Czech psychologist Zdenek Matejcek, dedicated to establishing the negative effect of institutional childcare on a child’s development and well-being, as well as to promoting the role of family as caregiver.
Incorporating spouses’ education into the analysis does not appear to bring additional understanding to mothers’ return-to-work patterns, either as covariate or as subsampling dimension. Results are available upon request.
References
Balint M, Kollo J (2008) The labour supply effects of maternity benefits. In: Fazekas, Cseres-Cergely, Scharle (eds) The Hungarian labour market, 2008. Review and analysis. Institute of Economics, Budapest
Bicakova A, Kaliskova K (2016) Career breaks after childbirth: the impact of family leave reforms in the Czech Republic, IZA Discussion paper n°10149, p 57
Bicakova A et al (2001) Labor supply after transition: evidence from the Czech Republic. Czech J Econ Financ 61:327–347
CZSO (2012) Czech Demographic Handbook 2011. CZSO, Prague
European Commission (2013) Council recommendation on the National Reform Programme 2013, p 7
Guzi M (2014) An empirical analysis of welfare dependence in the Czech Republic, Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University Prague, 64:407–431
Haskova H (2007) At home, in nursery or in kindergarten? Family and institutional care of pre-school children in the Czech society between 1945 and 2006, Gender, Egality of chances, Research, vol. 8, n°2, pp 15–26 ("Doma, v jeslich, nebo ve skolce? "Rodinna a institucionalni pece o predskolni deti v ceske spolecnosti 1945–2006, Gender, rovne prilezitosti, vyzkum)
Hašková H (2015) Proměny časování a způsobu návratu matek do zaměstnání. Rovné příležitosti v souvislostech 11:1–4
Haskova H, Uhde Z (eds) (2011) Women and social citizenship in Czech society: continuity and change, Institute of Sociology, AS CR, p 245
Kaliskova K, Munich D (2012) Czech women: untapped potential, CERGE-EI, p 15
Kucharova V, Svobodova K (2006) Network of day-care facilities for pre-school-age children in the Czech Republic, Report of the Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs (RILSA), p 57
Kucharova V et al (2009) Day care for children of pre-school and early-school age, Report of the Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs (RILSA), p 214
Lalive R, Zweimüller J (2009) Does parental leave affect fertility and return-to-work? Evidence from two natural experiments. Q J Econ 24(3):1363–1402
Lalive R, Schlosser A, Steinhauer A, Zweimüller J (2014) Parental leave and mothers’ careers: the relative importance of job protection and cash benefits. Rev Econ Stud 81:219–265
Lockshin M (1999) Household child care choices and women’s work behavior in Russia, Policy Research Working Paper #2206, The World Bank, p 35
Lovasz A, Szabo-Morvai A (2015) Does childcare matter for maternal labor supply? Pushing the limits of the regression discontinuity framework, Budapest Working papers on the labour market - 2013/13, p 41
Malkova O (2014) Can maternity benefits have long-term effects on childbearing? Evidence from Soviet Russia, Department of Economics, University of Michigan, p 60
Moschion J (2010) Reconciling work and family life: the effect of the French paid parental leave. Ann Econ Stat 99(100):217–246
Piketty T (2005) L’impact de l’allocation parentale d’éducation sur l’activité féminine et la fécondité en France, 1982-2002. Les Cahiers de l’INED 156:79–109
Potucek M (2001) Czech social reform after 1989: concepts and reality. Int Soc Secur Rev 54(3):81–105
Rossin-Slater M (forthcoming) Maternity and Family Leave Policy, prepared for inclusion in the Oxford Handbook on the Economics of Women. Averett SL, Argys LM, Hoffman SD (eds), forthcoming 2018
Ruhm CJ (1998) The economic consequences of parental leave mandates: lessons from Europe. Q J Econ 113:285–317
Saxonberg S (2013) From defamilialization to degenderization: toward a new welfare typology. Soc Policy Adm 47:26–49
Schönberg U, Ludsteck J (2014) Expansions in maternity leave coverage and mothers’ labor market outcomes after childbirth. J Labor Econ 32(3):469–505
Sobotka T et al (2008) Czech Republic: a rapid transformation of fertility and family behaviour after the collapse of state socialism. Demogr Res 19:403–454
Svejnar J (1999) Labor markets in the transitional Central and East European economies. In: Ashenfelter O, Card D (eds) Handbook of labor economics, vol 3b, pp 2810–2857
Thévenon O (2013) Drivers of female labour force participation in the OECD, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 145, p 56
Thévenon O, Solaz A (2013) Labour market effects of parental leave policies in OECD countries, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 141, p 56
Todd P (2012) Effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving women’s employability and quality of work: a critical review, Policy research working paper series 6189, The World Bank, p 78
Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to Dominique Meurs, Uta Schönberg, Florent Fremigacci, Erich Battistin and the anonymous referees of this Journal for their valuable help and comments. I also thank Christian Dustmann and Claudio Lucifora for their indispensable support, and all the participants of the 18th European IZA Summer School, the DEFAP/LASER Summer School in Applied Microeconometrics and the Fourth SOLE/EALE World Meetings for their helpful suggestions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Responsible editor: Erdal Tekin
Appendix
Appendix
Employment gap—women with children under 6 years old. Note: The maternal employment gap is defined as the difference in employment rates between women with and without children of pre-school age. Source: EU Labour Force Survey, in European Commission Indicators for monitoring the Employment Guidelines (2010)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mullerova, A. Family policy and maternal employment in the Czech transition: a natural experiment. J Popul Econ 30, 1185–1210 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-017-0649-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-017-0649-9