Recently women’s educational attainment and occupational status at the entry into the labour market increased toward closing the gap with men’s. Upon childbirth however, women’s career progression stagnates. Research has shown that while the differences in labour market success between men and women without children are minor, family formation seems to be a key process that brings about differences in the career success of men and women. Public child care arrangements are thought to partially soften mothers’ burdens of combing work and family obligations and therewith should reduce the motherhood career gap in occupational status. Moreover, the availability of child care may influence employers’ evaluation of the anticipated performance of mothers.
Drawing on the recent expansion of child care facilities in Germany we study the link between regional child care availability and women’s’ occupational status. Data on the development of occupational status over the career stem from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We link the SOEP data with regional information on the rates of child care attendance. The attendance rates for children aged under three years more than doubled between 2006 and 2012, albeit with variations across districts. Preliminary results of multilevel growth and fixed effects models suggest that levels of child care availability have a very limited effect on mothers’ status. Our findings cast doubt on the potential of child care availability to lower the motherhood career gap in occupational status.
joint with Jana Jaworski (Potsdam University)