Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Zhelyazkova N. 
Author-workplace-name: UNU-MERIT
Title: Discovering and explaining work-family strategies of parents in Luxembourg
Abstract: The presented analysis discovers and explains typical patterns of  work-family reconciliation for parents who had a child in the same  period 2003 and in the same country Luxembourg, thus facing the same  macroeconomic and institutional conditions. Work-family trajectories are  reconstructed as sequences of states using administrative records, so  that working hours and use of leave provisions or other social security  benefits are taken into account. Next, a clustering algorithm is applied  to identify typical patterns. The analysis reveals that when the birth  of a child is positioned as a pivotal point in the work-family  trajectory, it appears to be a transition point for about a third of the  female trajectories. For these women the event marks the beginning of a  long-term reduction of labour participation manifested either in  reducing the number of hours of work or in leaving the labour force. On  the contrary, the career trajectories of working fathers are stable  across time and for the majority of fathers there are no marked  differences in work-force participation before and after the birth of a  child. In the final stage of analysis available explanatory variables  are linked to derived types of career profiles via a multinomial logit  model. Work and family-related variables are used to test the hypothesis  that women make a decision on reducing their labour market participation  based on comparing the values of their time at home and the opportunity  cost of not working. The results are in line with this reasoning for  explaining the pattern of leaving the labour force after birth of a  child. However, economic reasoning does not seem to explain the pattern  of reducing the number of hours per week after the birth of a child.   Keywords work-family reconciliation; parental leave; labour supply of women
Keywords: Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination; Time Allocation and Labor Supply; 
Classification-JEL: J13; J16; J22; .
Series:  Working Papers
Creation-Date: 2014
Number: 022
File-URL: http://pub.maastrichtuniversity.nl/68fc1c2b-3f13-47d4-ad0d-3e97ab26e875
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 2165626
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2014022