We use data from Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden to examine whether part-time and intermittent work during early motherhood leads to regular full-time work later. We find that in Sweden, by the time the first child is four years old 80 percent of mothers are working full-time if 25 hours is counted as full-time work, but only 30 percent if a 35-hour threshold is used. This finding ...
Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the German Socio-Economic Panel, this research compares pathways into self-employment among men and women in the United States and Western Germany. Academic and vocational credentials are more important for stabilizing self-employment in the United States than in Germany, where the lack of credentials is a significant deterrent to ...
My research examines within-nation differences as well as cross-national differences in socially stratified outcomes, specifically the distribution of household incomes. I build on the considerable empirical evidence suggesting that group memberships are important factors in shaping one' s life course and in determining the level of social inequality. I examine seven years of longitudinal data from ...
It is well understood that children benefit educationally the greater the education of their parents. However, transfers of the benefits of human capital within the home occur between partners too. The more educated an individual the more able he or she is to provide a partner with effective career support. Individuals will on average earn more the higher the education of their partner. This reciprocal ...
There is a vast empirical literature investigating the effects of child care costs on female employment. Day care costs are usually treated as a reduction in female wages, which is supposed to negatively affect a woman's propensity to participate in the labor market. In this paper, we argue that due to peculiarities of the German day care regime, an analysis of the effects of child care on mothers' ...