Skip to main content

The time and the transitions back to work in France after maternity

Review of Economics of the Household volume 17, pages 861–888 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that childrearing has a different impact on a mother’s professional career, depending, among other reasons, on how much time passed from birth to return to work. In this paper, we use a competing risks model to determine which variables may explain time out of work, as well as the transition back to work for young mothers in France. In our study, mothers can decide to go back to the same employer, change a personal but also a professionalemployer and/or change labour supply. Our results show that it is mostly the age of the mothers at birth, their pre-birth wages, tenure, firm size as well as the state of the economy as a whole that play a large role in the way young mothers go back to work, if at all. This research highlights the key factors on which causal research should be based in order to advise firms and also policy-makers on how to influence mothers’ labour supply behaviors.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10

Notes

  1. Source: Eurostat (downloaded: 11/09/2018).

  2. This is the so-called congé parental d’écucation in French.

  3. DRESS: Research Division of the French Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.

  4. A licensed childminder is a professional who cares for children at home, but unlike the nanny, is certified by the state.

  5. We focus in this study on women who are eligible for parental leave.

  6. We define part-time work using the variable CE of DADS-EDP: 1: Full time and 2: Part time.

  7. Déclaration Annuelle des Données Sociales or Annual Declaration of Social Data, Échantillon Démographique Permanent. or Permanent Demographic Sample.

  8. We suppose that hourly wages do not evolve between the civil year before birth and the year of the birth.

  9. The distance we computed is the great circle distance, and it might actually be a bad proxy or commuting time. Indeed, it is entirely possible to live close to one’s working place and take very long to get there because of lack of public transportation or too much traffic. However, with this data, this is the best proxy we could come up with.

  10. Source: World Bank (downloaded: 14/06/2016).

  11. Source: INSEE (downloaded: 31/10/2016).

  12. Since individuals living in overseas departments are considered only since 2004, only part of our analysis period, we have decided not to include them in the analysis. They represent in the period 2004-2010 only 265 observations.

  13. In our data, we observe that civil servants often have a number of hours of work or wages automatically reported, this mean that we do not observe a reduction in working time or/and in wages in the year of the child’s birth. We decided to remove these women from the sample rather than assigning them the duration of the statutory maternity leave, as there is no way we could check this.

  14. We did not find any particular characteristics associated with the wrong approximation of post-natal leave (post-natal leave of 0 day). This seems to be independent of the sector of the firm or occupational categories.

  15. As the panel was enriched in 2003, we have between 150 and 400 individuals between 1995 and 2002 and between 680 and 850 after that date.

  16. 2004 is the year were the CLCA was introduced, as explained in Section 2.

  17. The results of other models are available upon request.

  18. See Appendix for a description of the reference mother.

  19. http://project-osrm.org/.

References

  • Alewell, D., & Pull, K. (2002). The international regulation of maternity leave: leave duration, predictability, and employer-co-financed maternity pay. International Business & Economics Research Journal, 1, 45–59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arntz, M., Dlugosz, S., & Wilke, R. A. (2017). The sorting of female careers after first birth: a competing risks analysis of maternity leave duration. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 79(5), 689–716.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arntz, M., LO, S. M. S., & Wilke, R. A. (2014). Bounds analysis of competing risks: a non-parametric evaluation of the effect of unemployment benefits on migration. Empirical Economics, 46(1), 199–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Asai, Y. (2015). Parental leave reforms and the employment of new mothers: quasi-experimental evidence from Japan. Labour Economics, 36, 72–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chardon, O. and Daguet, F. (2009). Enfants des couples, enfants des familles monoparentales. des diffécerences marquées pour les jeunes enfants. Insee Première 1216.

  • Davies, R., & Pierre, G. (2005). The family gap in pay in Europe: a cross-country study. Labour Economics, 12, 469–486.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Domingo, P., & Marc, C. (2012). Trajectoires professionnelles des mères: quels effets des arrêts et réductions d’activité? Politiques sociales et familiales, 108, 87–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fine, J. P., & Gray, R. J. (1999). A proportional hazards model for the subdistribution of a competing risk. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 94(446), 496–509.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Finseraas, H., Hardoy, I., & Schone, P. (2017). School enrolment and mothers’ labor supply: evidence from a regression discontinuity approach. Review of Economics of the Household, 15(2), 621–638.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fitzenberger, B., Steffes, S., & Strittmatter, A. (2016). Return-to-job during and after parental leave. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(8), 803–831.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frémeaux, N. and Lefranc, A. (2017). Assortative mating and earnings inequality in France. IZA Discussion Papers 11084. Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), 1–45.

  • Gangl, M., & Ziefle, A. (2009). Motherhood, labor force behavior, and women’s careers: an empirical assessment of the wage penalty for motherhood in Britain, Germany, and the United States. Demography, 46(2), 341–369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Givord, P., & Marbot, C. (2015). Does the cost of child care affect female labor market participation? An evaluation of a french reform of childcare subsidies. Labour Economics, 36, 99–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, B. (2014). cmprsk: Subdistribution Analysis of Competing Risks. R package version 2.2-7.

  • Guedj, H. (2013). Le taux d’emploi des hommes et des femmes. Des écarts plus marqués en équivalent temps plein. Insee Première 1462.

  • Gustafsson, S. S., Wetzels, C. M., Vlasblom, J. D., & Dex, S. (1996). Women’s labor force transitions in connection with childbirth: a panel data comparison between Germany, Sweden and Great Britain. Journal of Population Economics, 9, 223–246.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gutiérrez-Domenèch, M. (2005). Employment after motherhood: a European comparison. Labour Economics, 12, 99–123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Honoré, B. E., & Lleras-Muney, A. (2006). Bounds in competing risks models and the war on cancer. Econometrica, 74(6), 1675–1698.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Joseph, O., Pailhé, A., Recotillet, I., & Solaz, A. (2013). The economic impact of taking short parental leave: evaluation of a French reform. Labour Economics, 25, 63–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kleinbaum, D. G. and Klein, M. (2005). Survival Analysis: A Self-Learning Text. Springer Science and Business Media, LLC, 1–700.

  • Lalive, R., Schlosser, A., Steinhauer, A., & Zweimüller, J. (2014). Parental leave and mothers’ careers: the relative importance of job protection and cash benefits. The Review of Economic Studies, 81(1), 219–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lalive, R., & Zweimüller, J. (2009). How does parental leave affect fertility and return to work? evidence from two natural experiments. The Quarterly Jounral of Economics, 124(3), 1363–1402.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, S., & Wilke, R. A. (2009). Reform of unemployment compensation in Germany: a nonparametric bounds analysis using register data. Journal of Business & Economic Statistic, 27(2), 193–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leibowitz, A., Klerman, J. A., & Waite, L. J. (1992). Employment of new mothers and child care choice: differences by children’s age. The Journal of Human Resources, 27(1), 112–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lequien, L. (2012). The impact of parental leave duration on later wages. Annals of Economics and Statistics, (107-108), 267–285.

  • Mahringer, H., & Zulehner, C. (2015). Child-care costs and mothers’ employment rates: an empirical analysis for Austria. Review of Economics of the Household, 13, 837–870.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meurs, D., Pailhé, A., & Ponthieux, S. (2010). Child-related career interruptions and the gender wage gap in France. Annals of Economics and Statistics, 100, 15–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morrissey, T. W. (2017). Child care and parent labor force participation: a review of the research literature. Review of Economics of the Household, 15, 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ondrich, J., Spiess, C., Yang, Q., & Wagner, G. (2003). The liberalization of maternity leave policy and the return to work after childbirth in Germany. Review of Economics of the Household, 1(1), 77–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pailhé, A., & Solaz, A. (2007). Inflexions des trajectoires professionnelles des hommes et des femmes après la naissance denfants. Recherches et prévisions, 90(1), 5–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piketty, T. (2005). Impact de l’allocation parentale d’éducation sur l’activité féminine et la fécondité en france. histoires Délelőtt familles, histoires familiales: les Cahiers Délelőtt l’INED, 156, 79–109.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schönberg, U., & Ludsteck, J. (2014). Expansions in maternity leave coverage and mothers’ labor market outcomes after childbirth. Journal of Labor Economics, 32(3), 469–505.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Therneau, T. M. (2015a). coxme: Mixed Effects Cox Models. R package version 2.2-5.

  • Therneau, T. M. (2015b). A Package for Survival Analysis in S. version 2.38.

  • Volant, S. (2017). Un premier enfant à 28,5 ans en 2015: 4,5 ans plus tard qu’en 1974. Insee Première, (1642).

  • Waldfogel, J. (1997). the effect of children on women’s wages. American Sociological Review, 62(2), 209–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilner, L. (2016). Worker-firm matching and the parenthood pay gap: evidence from linked employer-employee data. Journal of Population Economics, 29(4), 991–1023.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, B. and Latouche, A. (2013). crrSC: Competing risks regression for Stratified and Clustered data. R package version 1.1.

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank anonymous referees, Elena Stancanelli, Isabelle Terraz, Bertrand Koebel, Mathieu Lefebvre, François Legendre, François-Charles Wolff and Ralf Wilke for their helpful comments. This work is supported by public grants overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the “Investissements d’avenir” program (reference: ANR-10-EQPX-17—Centre d’accès sécurisé aux données—CASD) and the “FamPol” project (reference: ANR-10-EQPX-17). Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the organizations or services for which they work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bureau d’Economie Théorique et Appliquée (BETA), University of Strasbourg, CNRS, Strasbourg, France

    Bruno Rodrigues

  2. Bureau d’Economie Théorique et Appliquée (BETA), University of Strasbourg, CNRS, Strasbourg, France. Luxembourg Institute for Socio-Economic Research (LISER), Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg. University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

    Vincent Vergnat

Authors
  1. Bruno Rodrigues
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Vincent Vergnat
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Bruno Rodrigues or Vincent Vergnat.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5.

Table 5 Characteristics of the reference person used in section Results and Discussion
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rodrigues, B., Vergnat, V. The time and the transitions back to work in France after maternity. Rev Econ Household 17, 861–888 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-019-09442-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-019-09442-5

Keywords

  • Post-natal Leave
  • Labour Supply
  • Competing Risks
  • Administrative Data

JEL classification

  • C41
  • D10
  • J13