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February 12, 2014

Cluster-Seminar Public Finances and Living Conditions

Labor supply under working hours constraints - Assessing the potential of a family working time benefit in Germany

Date

February 12, 2014

Location

Eleanor-Dulles-Raum
DIW Berlin im Quartier 110
Room 5.2.010
Mohrenstraße 58
10117 Berlin

Speakers

Michael Neumann
(joint with Kai-Uwe Müller and Katharina Wrohlich)
The majority of empirical labor supply models used for policy evaluation assumes observed hours of work as revealed preferences of individuals or households. Economic actors maximize their utility by choosing among different bundles of income and leisure. By assumption their choice is not constrained by regulations, institutions, or insufficient labor demand. In this paper we evaluate the employment effects of a policy proposal for which restrictions on the choice of working hours are crucial by using a structural labor supply model with working hours constraints. The family working time benefit (FWTB) is targeted at couple households with young children and designed to improve the financial incentives for a more equal distribution of gainful employment and care or family duties among spouses. Conditional on both partners working around 30 hours per week (equal to 80% of a conventional full-time job) the (hypothetical) income difference to their full-time income is partially compensated. Although its employment effects would be rather small, we find that FWTB reaches its goal by reducing working hours for fathers and increasing them for mothers. The pure incentive effect on labor supply is roughly halved when accounting for working hours constraints. 

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