Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Zhelyazkova N. 
Author-workplace-name: UNU-MERIT
Title: Parental leave take up and return to work of mothers in Luxembourg: An application of the model of nested dichotomies
Abstract: This paper analyses the use of parental leave after birth of a child for  working mothers. Even though employment rates of women in industrialized  countries are rising, women continue to assume the primary  responsibility for caring for young children after they are born.  Therefore it is interesting and important to understand what factors  account for womens decision to use or not use parental leave. The  behaviour of mothers is conceptualized as a series of three decisions  taking place after the compulsory period of maternity leave. The first  decision is to retain a relationship with the pre-birth employment or to  leave the labour force. Women who do not quit their employment, make a  second choice to return to work immediately or to take parental leave  for a fixed period of time, which guarantees them the right to return to  work. Finally at the end of parental leave, women decide whether to  return to work or to quit their job. The empirical analysis is performed  on administrative data provided by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. In  order to account for the sequential nature of the decisions, the model  for nested dichotomies Fox, 1997 has been used. The result lend  partial evidence to economic reasoning about womens decision making.  Salary-related opportunity cost seems to be particularly important in  the first and third decision, but not in the second. There are also  interesting differences based on the nationality of the women.    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: 023
File-URL: http://pub.maastrichtuniversity.nl/43dd7312-2796-4dcb-90db-bb09f6f2f3ff
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 754901
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2014023