Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Gerards, Ruud
Author-workplace-name: ROA / Training and employment, RS: GSBE DUHR, RS: GSBE Theme Learning and Work
Author-Name: Theunissen, Pomme
Author-workplace-name: Finance, RS: GSBE EFME, RS: GSBE Theme Creativity, Innovation & Entrepreneurship 
Title: Becoming a mompreneur: Parental leave policies and mothers' propensity for self-employment
Abstract: Contractionary parental leave policy reforms decrease the time mothers can stay at home after giving birth. This might discourage them to become an entrepreneur. Exploiting a German parental leave policy reform, we apply a regression discontinuity approach to establish a causal relationship between parental leave policies and the probability for mothers to become entrepreneurs (i.e., “mompreneurs”). We find that a decrease in the generosity of parental leave lowers the odds of mothers to become self-employed by 17%. We show additional evidence that suggests that this is particularly due to the reduced period of paid parental leave.
Classification-JEL: h31,j10,j20,l26
Series: GSBE Research Memoranda
Creation-Date: 20181204
Number: 025
File-URL: https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/files/31198765/RM18025.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 1138139
Handle: Repec:unm:umagsb:2018025
DOI: 10.26481/umagsb.2018025