Motherhood and market work decisions in institutional context: a European perspective

This paper explores the impact of social polices and labour market conditions on women’s decisions on work and childbearing. This is analysed using data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). The aim of the paper is to jointly estimate the two decisions while controlling for factors such as personal characteristics, variables related to the childcare system, parental leave arrangements, family allowan-ces, and part time work opportunities. Our empirical results indicate that differences in social policies across European countries account for a non-negligible percentage of the differences in women’s labour market participation across these countries. The environment variables have a marginally significant effect on fertility decisions, which varies by women’s level of education. Certain types of part time work oppor-tunities, childcare, optional parental leave, and child allowances have a larger impact on participation decisions of women with lower levels of education