Women's labor force participation has rapidly increased in most countries, but mothers still struggle to achieve a satisfactory work-life balance. Childcare allows the primary caregiver, usually the mother, to take time away from childrearing for employment. Family policies that subsidize...

Using rich longitudinal register data from Denmark, we show that the allocation of mothers between the competitive private sector and the family-friendly public sector significantly changes around the birth of their first child. Specifically, mothers – post first childbirth – are...

The paper documents employment and wage gaps, which arise between mothers and childless women, for a set of 28 European countries. The role of family policies in explaining these inequalities is then examined by looking at a single policy as well as childcare and leave policies interaction. The...

The introduction of the Australian Paid Parental Leave scheme in 2011 provides a rare opportunity to estimate the labour supply and employment impacts of publicly-funded paid leave on mothers in the first year post-partum. The almost universal coverage of the scheme coupled with detailed survey...