BAREFOOT AND IN A GERMAN KITCHEN - FEDERAL PARENTAL LEAVE AND BENEFITPOLICY AND THE RETURN TO WORK AFTER CHILDBIRTH IN GERMANY

Since 1979 German federal maternity leave and benefit policy has given women incentives to stay at home and take care of their newborn and y oungest children. In 1986 this leave and benefit policy was changed in several ways, turning it into a powerful instrument for delaying moth ers' return to work after childbirth. Using a flexible duration depend ence estimation technique for proportional hazards due to Prentice and Gloeckler (1978) and applied to grouped durations by Meyer (1987, 199 0), we estimate post childbirth return to work hazards for women durin g the federally protected leave protection period and immediately upon completion of this leave period. During the leave mothers are less li kely to return to work the longer is the time left in the leave protec tion period; however, this result cannot be attributed generally to hi gh levels of maternity benefits. When the leave protection period ends , mothers with strong labor force attachment who are still on leave re turn to their jobs.