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What Makes Single Mothers Expand or Reduce Employment?

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Abstract

To explore single mothers’ labor market participation we analyzed specific circumstances and dynamics in their life courses. We focused on the question which individual and institutional factors determine both professional advancement and professional descent. The German Socio-Economic Panel (1984–2010) provides all necessary information identifying episodes of single motherhood and analyzing restrictions and interruptions of employment during life courses. Since family statuses of single mothers are partially endogenous and can end in multiple ways, we used semi-parametric survival models. Competing risks estimations showed that occupational careers of single mothers are influenced by individual factors such as appointed and reliable working hours, and further by the institutional determinants childcare or welfare benefits.

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Notes

  1. Numbers of cases in the estimates differ from the number of episodes mentioned before because transition into different employment states can only be observed for individuals in specific subgroups. Results for testing the proportional hazard assumption can be found in the appendix.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chair in Social Policy and Public Finance, Ruhr University Bochum, Building GC 04, Room 309, 44780, Bochum, Germany

    Mine Hancioglu

  2. Chair in Social Policy and Institutional Economics, Ruhr University Bochum, Building GC 04, Room 305, 44780, Bochum, Germany

    Bastian Hartmann

Authors
  1. Mine Hancioglu
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  2. Bastian Hartmann
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Correspondence to Bastian Hartmann.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Table 8 List of co-variables
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Table 9 Tests of proportional hazard assumptions for estimates provided in Table 5
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Table 10 Tests of proportional hazard assumptions for estimates provided in Table 5
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Table 11 Tests of proportional hazard assumptions for estimates, provided in Tables 6 and 7
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Hancioglu, M., Hartmann, B. What Makes Single Mothers Expand or Reduce Employment?. J Fam Econ Iss 35, 27–39 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-013-9355-2

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