RT Generic
T1 The effects of children on mothers' employment and  earnings : evidence from Spain
A1 Alba, Alfonso
A1 Cáceres-Delpiano, Julio
A2 Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía, 
AB Using a large and rich data set from administrative sources, we study the effects ofchildren on mothers’ employment and earnings in Spain. By being able to pinpoint theevent of multiple births along a twenty-year panel of women’s work history, weaddress two methodological hurdles in this research: the omitted-variable problemand concerns about twins as a good instrument for family size. We find that theeffects of fertility on mothers’ labor outcomes differ by level of education. Women withonly compulsory education experience falls of 17 percent in employment and 15percent in earnings, increased duration of non-employed spells, and reductions in thelikelihood of holding a secondary job or chaining contracts within a certainemployment spell. Among more educated women, the employment rate drops by amere 4 percent and earnings increase slightly in some cases. Nonetheless, arelatively higher employment rate of more educated mothers, besides unexpectedchanges in family size, involves costs in terms of working conditions, like holdingtemporary contracts. Our results indicate that mothers in general have a hard timeregaining employment as revealed by the sharp increase in the take-up rate ofunemployment insurance benefits around the third month after the birth. Finally, weare able to obtain some results for the impact of family size on the labor supply of asecond earner (husband) in the household. For instance, we find that second earnerstend to compensate for mothers’ income diminution.
SN 2340-5031
YR 2013
FD 2013-07
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10016/17231
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10016/17231
LA eng
NO Julio Cáceres Delpiano gratefully acknowledges financial support from the SpanishMinistry of Education (Grant ECO2009-11165).
DS e-Archivo
RD 14 ago. 2024