Can Financial Incentives Reduce the Baby Gap? Evidence from a Reform in Maternity Leave Benefits
Can Financial Incentives Reduce the Baby Gap? Evidence from a Reform in Maternity Leave Benefits
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经济激励能否缩小婴儿差距？
DOI：
10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.07.010
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发表时间：
2017
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
A. Raute
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
A. Raute
在本文中，我评估了收入依赖型产假是否会对生育率产生积极影响，并缩小高学历（高收入）和低学历（低收入）女性之间的生育差距。我利用了德国的一项重大产假福利改革，该改革大大增加了对受过高等教育和收入较高的女性的经济激励，最高可达21,000 欧元。在差异中差异设计中，利用不同教育程度和收入群体在产假福利方面的巨大差异变化，我估计了改革对生育率的因果影响长达5 年。除了证明受过高等教育的女性的生育率提高了23%之外，我还发现了一个积极的、统计上显著的生育率提高效应，主要是由收入分配中上端的女性推动的。总体而言，研究结果表明，根据生育机会成本对妇女进行补偿的收入依赖型产假福利可以成功地减少与母亲教育和收入相关的生育率差异。
In this paper, I assess whether earnings-dependent maternity leave positively impacts fertility and narrows the baby gap between highly educated (high-earning) and less-educated (low-earning) women. I exploit a major maternity leave benefit reform in Germany that considerably increased the financial incentives, by up to 21,000 EUR, for highly educated and higher-earning women. Using the large differential changes in maternity leave benefits across education and income groups in a differences-in-differences design, I estimate the causal impact of the reform on fertility for up to 5 years. In addition to demonstrating an up to 23% increase in the fertility of tertiary-educated women, I find a positive, statistically significant effect of increased benefits on fertility, driven mainly by women at the middle and upper end of the earnings distribution. Overall, the results suggest that earnings-dependent maternity leave benefits, which compensate women according to their opportunity cost of childbearing, could successfully reduce the fertility rate disparity related to mothers' education and earnings.
影响因子：
6.1
作者：
Brewer M
通讯作者：
Brewer M