Women and the labour market in East and West Germany : the role of socialist legacy and pre-socialist tradition

There is a successful and growing number of studies published in top-economics journals that exploit the division and re-unification of Germany as a natural experiment for analysing the effects of political regimes on economic behaviour. One strand of the literature shows that socialism shaped also the attitude toward working women. Against the background, of higher pre-war female labour supply in East Germany, this paper shows an almost negligible long-term socialist treatment effect on female labour force participation. A cautious interpretation of this finding is that any socialist legacy effect on attitudes is not visible in actual behaviour. Another novel finding is that social acceptance of working women today is affected by pre-war differences in female labour supply. This finding corresponds to a mark-up of married East German women in work in pre-War Germany. The paper exemplifies that considering the pre-separation history of Germany is pivotal to enhance the credibility of the flourishing research on the natural experiment of German separation and re-unification.