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Public Childcare Provision and Fertility Behavior - A comparison of Germany and Sweden

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The author investigates the relationship between the availability of public childcare for children under age three and the decision to have a first child. One would expect that childcare reconciles work and family and thus positively affects childbearing. However, existing research results on this relationship are inconsistent. Based on individual level datasets for Germany and Sweden, the author analyzes two research questions. First, she focuses on who makes use of public childcare for children under three years. Second, she assesses how childcare policies shape first birth decisions. The findings imply that the effects of public childcare services are not homogeneous across countries or socioeconomic groups.
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... In contrast to more commonly used eventhistory analysis, GCA provides a holistic perspective on life course stratification rather than an analysis of individual transitions to certain positions up and or down the occupational ladder. In contrast to sequence analysis, another holistically oriented method, GCA enables a regression-based analysis of occupational histories (Härkönen & Bihagen 2011;2014;Manzoni, Härkönen & Mayer 2014). These features make GCA an attractive tool for answering our research questions, and for life course research on stratification processes more generally. ...
... Hence a system that promotes female labour market participation may at the same time lead to substantial gender differences in human capital and in the labour force. It is also possible that a system where the combination of working life and family life is more difficult to achieve leads to a situation where many women delay entry into parenthood (or even avoid becoming parents) (Neyer & Andersson 2008;Krapf 2014). However, these arrangements have developed over time. ...
... This began to change rapidly in Sweden from the 1970s onwards, when the core features of its family policy regime were instituted and developed, but the change was slower in () Germany (OECD 2015). In Germany, this development has gone hand in hand with a reformed parental insurance, coming closer to the parental insurance in Sweden more recently (Ostner 2010;Krapf 2014). Hence, with the risk of over-simplifying, the same trends towards a dual breadwinner society can be seen in both countries, with a sharp increase of female labour market participation in ...
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... Furthermore, there is still a lack of private and public childcare facilities, especially for infants. Moreover, even for older children, childcare services often do not cover all hours of the working day (Krapf, 2014). ...
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