Women's labor force transitions in connection with childbirth: a panel data comparison between Germany, Sweden and...

"In this paper we make use of the panel aspects of the German GSOEP, the Swedish HUS and the British BHPS data...[to analyze] labor force transitions triggered by child births of different birth orders.... We find that German and British women have even higher full-time labor force participation than Swedish women 12 months before the birth of the first child. The difference is more pronounced for second and third births than for first births. We suggest that these differences are caused by different family policy regimes where Germany can be characterized as a breadwinner regime and Sweden a regime oriented towards equal role sharing of father and mother. Our results on determinants of being in the labor force both after and before the birth of a child as well as determinants of the tempo of entering the labor force after birth show that women's own human capital is important both in Germany and Great Britain, whereas in Sweden also less educated women have entered the labor force by the time the child is 2 years old."