Female labour supply and parental leave benefits – the causal effect of paying higher transfers for a shorter period of time

We study the labour supply effects of a major change in child-subsidy policy in Germany in 2007 designed to increase both fertility and shorten birth-related employment interruptions. The reform involved a move from a means-tested maternity leave benefit system that paid a maximum of 300 Euro for up to 2 years to a benefit system that replaced two-thirds of pre-birth earnings for at most 1 year. As the reform took place very recently, we estimate the labour supply effect by using data drawn from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) on the intention of women to return to the labour market. Our results show that the reform yields most of the intended effects: the fraction of mothers who plan to return to the labour market within a year after the interview increased by 14 percentage points.