Is maternal labor market re-entry after childbirth facilitated by mothers’ and partners’ flextime?

Abstract

How do national-level work–life balance policies shape the role of flextime in maternal labor market re-entry after childbirth? It is well known that such policies influence the adoption, provision, and support of flexible work arrangements by organizations, but whether they shape the relevance of these arrangements for workers has been neglected in past research. This article analyzes whether mothers’ and partners’ flextime facilitates maternal labor market re-entry after childbirth in Germany, where family policy reforms have been implemented in the last two decades. Event history analysis based on German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data from the years 2003–2013 revealed that mothers were more likely to re-enter the labor market if they had used flextime before childbirth. However, this effect existed only before the implementation of family policy reforms, namely the introduction of parental leave in 2007 and the expansion of public childcare. Moreover, the use of flextime before childbirth did not encourage mothers to maintain previous work hours (the legal right to work part time has existed in Germany since 2001). Partners’ use of flextime before childbirth was found to be less relevant for mothers’ return to work after childbirth. The analysis indicates that generous national-level work–life balance policies can diminish the effectiveness of organizational work–life balance policies for mothers’ employment behavior.

Keywords

event history analysis family policy reforms flextime maternal employment maternal labor market re-entry after childbirth mothers’ and partners’ use of flextime before childbirth parental leave part time return to work schedule control welfare state policies

Introduction

Work–life balance is a ‘career value’ (Valcour, 2007), and employers are increasingly implementing work–life balance policies with the aim of recruiting and retaining qualified workers, primarily women. Because they still take on the main household-related responsibilities, women often drop out of the labor market completely or reduce their working time considerably after childbirth (OECD, 2017). Schedule control, namely flextime (i.e. control over the starting and ending times of the workday), is at the heart of organizational work–life balance strategies and can help employees to combine work and family life (Kelly et al., 2014), especially in early family life stages (Erickson et al., 2010).

However, not only employers but also the modern welfare state aims to support working mothers. In particular, conservative welfare state regimes with explicit familialization policies (Leitner, 2014) aim to support women with care responsibilities through work-reducing policies such as generous parental leave entitlements and the right to work part time. It is well known from previous research that national-level policies encourage employers to implement work–life balance policies in the form of flexible work arrangements (Been et al., 2017a; Ollier-Malaterre et al., 2013a). Flextime, for example, is more prevalent in countries with generous national-level family policies (Chung, 2017). Moreover, in these countries, managers see the support of flexible work arrangements as ‘the social responsibility of the organization’ (Been et al., 2017a: 587).

Whereas the influence of the institutional context on the adoption, provision, and support of organizational flexible work arrangements has been studied broadly (Ollier-Malaterre et al., 2013), the role of these arrangements for workers who have access to generous statutory work–family provisions has received less attention. However, in order to implement work–life balance policies effectively, practitioners and policy makers need to know whether and how national-level policies shape the relevance of organizational arrangements for workers in the transition to parenthood. The life-course theoretical perspective tells us that the welfare state regulates transitions within individuals’ life courses – for example, the transition to parenthood – and that individuals in transitions act with regard to policy incentives and underlying social norms (Leisering, 2003). Moreover, according to institutional theory, welfare state policies reinforce individuals’ sense of entitlement to support for work and family life (Lewis and Smithson, 2001), and workers may consider making use of statutory provisions for work–life reconciliation more legitimate than taking advantage of organizational-level work–life policies (Brannen, 2005). National-level policies might therefore diminish the relevance of organizational-level policies for women’s labor market re-entry after childbirth.

How do national-level policies shape the role of flextime, as one form of schedule control, in mothers’ work behavior after childbirth? So far, the role of organizational work–life balance policies in mothers’ employment behavior has been studied only for the UK, where flextime has been shown to foster mothers’ employment and the maintenance of previous work hours after childbirth (Chung and van der Horst, 2018). However, this effect might be owing to the poor state support for family care responsibilities in the UK (Leitner, 2014), and thus to British employees’ need for policies at organizational level. In countries with more generous welfare state policies, by contrast, flextime might be less relevant for mothers’ work behavior after childbirth. Germany is a prime example of a welfare state with strong regulatory policies; the right to work part time has been legally enforceable since 2001. The parental leave reform introduced in 2007, which included a so-called ‘father’s quota’ (i.e. two additional months of parental allowance if the other partner takes at least two months parental leave), and the accompanying public childcare reforms, have considerably increased maternal employment and men’s uptake of parental leave in recent years (Greyer et al., 2014; Müller and Wrohlich, 2018). In the present study, therefore, the influence of national-level policies on the relevance of flextime for maternal employment is investigated for the German case. The following research questions are addressed. First, does the use of flextime by mothers and their partners before childbirth increase the likelihood that mothers will return to work sooner after childbirth? The life courses of individuals in intimate relationships are highly intertwined (Elder et al., 2003), and fathers’ schedule control can facilitate mothers’ work schedules (Han, 2004; Moen and Yu, 2000). Thus, there may be crossover effects of partners’ use of flextime before childbirth on maternal employment. The second question asks: Has there been a change in the likelihood that mothers who used/whose partners used flextime before childbirth will return to work sooner after childbirth since the introduction of paid parental leave and the expansion of public childcare? And finally, the third question: Does flextime use before childbirth encourage mothers to maintain rather than reduce their previous work hours when returning to work after childbirth? The present study is based on German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data from the years 2003–2013. Event history analysis is used to estimate mothers’ return to work after childbirth and the reduction or maintenance of their working time after childbirth.

The study contributes to the existing literature in three ways. First, the effects of flextime, as a form of schedule control, on women’s employment behavior after childbirth are analyzed using longitudinal data. Instead of group comparisons (Chung and van der Horst, 2018), adequate quantitative methods are applied to predict the event of mothers’ labor market re-entry after childbirth and their maintenance or reduction of work hours over time. Second, crossover effects of partners’ schedule control are considered. Third, and most importantly, the role of welfare state policies in the impact of flexible working arrangements on mothers’ work behavior is studied by applying a life-course theoretical perspective as well as the institutional theory concept of ‘sense of entitlement to work–life support’. In incorporating the latter theoretical approach, I take up a suggestion of Ollier-Malaterre et al. (2013b: 440) that more research should make use of this ‘powerful’ concept when integrating the institutional context into work–life research.

The remainder of this article is organized as follows: In the next section, the role of welfare state policies in working time flexibility is described from a life-course theoretical perspective. The relationship between working time flexibility and mothers’ employment behavior after childbirth is then examined. After outlining the empirical strategy employed in the present study, the results are presented. The article ends with a conclusion and discussion.

The life course and welfare state policies

From a life-course theoretical perspective, the life course is the interface between institutional control (i.e. the welfare state) and individual strategies of action (Heinz and Krüger, 2001; Leisering, 2003). The life course is structured by a succession of trajectories (i.e. sequences of linked states within a range of experiences) and transitions (i.e. changes from one state to another; Mayer and Müller, 1994). Because transitions involve social risks, and the primary aim of the welfare state is security (Leisering, 2003), the welfare state regulates transitions through policies (Heinz, 1991). These policies encompass individual rights, benefits, and services that are provided by the welfare state with reference to the life course (Leisering, 2003) and frame individuals’ decision-making and self-interpretation (Heinz and Krüger, 2001). Individuals are not forced by the state to adopt a certain behavior – for example to take on care responsibilities – but their strategies of action, their behaviors, and their categories of knowledge are shaped by the welfare state’s opportunity structure and incentive structure, mainly in the form of cash benefits (Leisering, 2003). Because cash benefits are often limited in time, the welfare state defines the duration of life episodes and transitions, and, in doing so, imposes time structures on individuals’ lives (Leisering, 2003).

The welfare state aims to shape the life course according to ‘normative models’ (Leisering, 2003). Welfare state policies, which carry with them social norms (Heinz and Krüger, 2001), legitimate, reproduce, and coordinate these models and lead to ‘hidden or implicit social policy’ (Cooke, 2011; Leisering, 2003: 214). Normative models relate, for example, to family and gender, in which case they comprise the rules and duties that society defines for men and women (Lorber, 1994). However, social norms and normative models differ across welfare states – with distinct consequences for the life course. Extensive state regulation of transitions via government policies contributes to a more continuous and standardized life course, whereas a low level of state intervention in this regard produces a ‘more fluid life course’ (Leisering, 2003: 218).

Modern welfare states implement different types of familialism – that is, the support of family care responsibilities (Leitner, 2014). The UK, for example, has a liberal welfare state regime with an implicit familialism, where familial care receives only weak state support (Leitner, 2014). Combining work and family is primarily considered to be a private matter, and public childcare provision is poor (Gregory and Milner, 2009). With the introduction in 2003 of the right for carers and parents to request flexible work (e.g. shorter hours), UK employees with caring responsibilities received greater statutory support. However, this right, which was extended to all employees in 2014, is quite limited, as employers are not obliged to grant the request. Rather, they are only required to consider it ‘in a reasonable manner,’ and may refuse it, for reasons such as the ‘burden of additional costs,’ ‘an inability to reorganize work among existing staff,’ or ‘the detrimental impact on quality of service’ (Adam, 2014). Moreover, employees do not have the right to appeal to an employment tribunal against a refusal (Hegewisch, 2009). Because 35% of British women on maternity leave fail to secure approval for part-time work, mothers rely on other flexible work arrangements, such as flextime, to combine work and family demands. They use these arrangements in order to return to work after childbirth and maintain previous work hours (Chung and van der Horst, 2018).

Germany, by contrast, is a prime example of a country with a conservative welfare state regime, and is characterized by extensive state regulation of life-course transitions and explicit familialization policies that aim to support families – and women especially – in their caring roles (Leitner, 2014). Although Germany, like the UK, has historically fostered the male-breadwinner model (Esping-Andersen, 2006; Sainsbury, 1999) – and, to an extent, continues to do so by maintaining the joint taxation of married couples with full income splitting – there have been three major policy reforms in the last two decades aimed at increasing maternal employment by supporting employees’ ability to combine work and family life and encouraging fathers’ involvement in childcare.

First, in 2001, the Part-Time Work and Fixed-Term Employment Contracts Act (Teilzeit- und Befristungsgesetz) was passed, which grants almost all employees the right to reduce their working time. This is a legally enforceable right that is further reinforced by collective agreements between employers’ associations and labor unions. Employers may reject for operational reasons employees’ requests to work part time. An operational reason is deemed to exist, in particular, if the reduction of working time would substantially and adversely affect the organization, work processes, or security of the business operation (§ 8(4)). Collective agreements, which apply to 57% of employees in western Germany and to 44% of employees in eastern Germany (Ellguth and Kohaut, 2018), may further specify the permissible grounds for refusal (§ 8(4)).

Second, in 2007, a reform was passed that granted all employees the right to take up to 36 months of parental leave. Prior to the reform, parents received a child-raising allowance (Erziehungsgeld) of up to 300 euros per month, which was paid for up to 24 months after childbirth. Under the new system, the child-raising allowance has been replaced by a parental allowance (Elterngeld), which provides wage replacement of between 65% and 100% of prior monthly income (within minimum and maximum allowance amounts of 300 and 1800 euros respectively) and is paid for up to 12 months after childbirth if just one parent makes use of it, or 14 months if both parents do so (Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, 2018). The additional two months of parental allowance, referred to as the ‘father’s quota,’ are granted if the other parent takes at least two months parental leave. Employees also have the right to opt for part-time work (15 to 30 hours per week) with reduced wage replacement during parental leave. An additional 24 months of unpaid parental leave, which can be divided into two separate leave periods, can be taken between the child’s third and eighth birthdays.

And finally, the third group of policy reforms, introduced in 2005 and 2008, were those aimed at gradually expanding the provision of publicly subsidized childcare (Müller and Wrohlich, 2018) in order to support working mothers.

As in the United States (Han et al., 2009), Austria (Lalive et al., 2014), and Norway (Dahl et al., 2014), where leave policies have had a strong impact on maternal employment and leave-taking, these German policy reforms have considerably shaped mothers’ work trajectories. Although 51% of mothers with children under the age of three whose partners worked full-time were still not in employment in 2015 (Destatis, 2017), the share of working mothers has risen continuously since 2007 (Destatis, 2014). However, the increase in maternal employment is accounted for mainly by the increase in part-time jobs. As of 2014, 80% of part-time workers were female, and 24% of women with children under three years of age worked part-time. Moreover, similar to Canada (Hanratty and Trzcinski, 2009), statutory parental leave provisions in Germany, which provide for 12 months’ wage replacement (parental allowance), have produced a standardized leave period of 12 months for mothers. Thus, the German parental leave reform and the expansion of publicly subsidized childcare have increased maternal employment primarily in the second year after childbirth (Greyer et al., 2014; Müller and Wrohlich, 2018). In 2014, 96% of mothers took 12 months’ parental leave (Destatis, 2014). With regard to the extensive policy reforms in recent years and their considerable impact on mother’s work trajectories, Germany represents an excellent case for studying the role of national-level policies in the relevance of flextime for mothers’ work behavior after childbirth.

Schedule control, mothers’ employment behavior and sense of entitlement

Because long career breaks and part-time work violate workplace norms, especially in an ideal worker culture (Williams et al., 2013), they have negative consequences for women in terms of career progression and earnings (Leslie et al., 2012; Sigle and Waldfogel, 2007). Previous studies have attributed mothers’ employment behavior after childbirth to their economic position and to that of their partners, to gender role attitudes, and to worker identities (Hyde et al., 1993; Kaufman and Uhlenberg, 2000; Schober, 2013). However, the role of schedule control in women’s labor market re-entry and in their employment behavior after childbirth has received less attention.

Schedule control is crucial to employees’ ability to combine work and family, especially in the early stages of family life (Erickson et al., 2010). Schedule control can buffer high job demands (Schieman, 2013) and can also reduce work–family conflict, because it enables employees to restructure work around family demands (Kelly et al., 2014). Similarly, according to work/family border theory (Clark, 2000), schedule control provides workers with control over temporal boundaries between work and family domains and helps them to adapt work to fit around family demands and/or to meet both work and family demands (Chung and van der Horst, 2018). Workers in the transition to parenthood, or in the transition to another child, must deal with unpredictability in the home domain, and they face conflicting time demands at work and at home (Clawson and Gerstel, 2014). Job flexibility is therefore most beneficial for (new) parents (Erickson et al., 2010), and control over working time can contribute to a better work–family balance (Allen et al., 2013; Michel et al., 2011). Flextime – that is, the control over the starting and ending times of the workday – is a crucial organizational-level arrangement that lessens work–family conflict and improves time adequacy (Allen et al., 2013; Kelly et al., 2014; Lott, 2015), health (Ala-Mursula et al., 2004), and work commitment (Gallie et al., 2012). Because workers who use flextime have control over the starting and ending times of their workday, they can adapt their working time to unpredictable family demands (Clawson and Gerstel, 2014). Thus, flextime might encourage mothers to re-enter the labor market sooner. Chung and van der Horst (2018) found that the use of flextime before childbirth mattered more for British women’s employment behavior than the working arrangements at the time of their return to work after childbirth. This might also be the case for Germany. The German Parental Allowance and Parental Leave Act (Bundeselterngeld- und Elternzeitgesetz) stipulates that employees must decide before childbirth about the use of parental leave. Individuals and couples must therefore plan their parental leave and the timing of their return to work in the context of their work situation before parental leave – that is, with regard to their working time arrangements before childbirth. In addition, employees who have already had experience of flextime are able to assess the extent to which it can actually help them to combine work and family, and whether the use of flextime for caregiving reasons is supported by their supervisors. Flextime before childbirth might therefore encourage mothers to return to work after childbirth. Moreover, partners’ schedule control can facilitate mothers’ work schedules (Han, 2004; Moen and Yu, 2000) and advance women’s careers (Langner, 2018). From a life-course theoretical perspective, individuals’ lives are linked, and in intimate relationships, in particular, individuals experience mutually influential trajectories throughout their lives (Elder et al., 2003). Partners negotiate work and life strategies as a unit and can take advantage of one partner’s ability to obtain work flexibility (Moen and Yu, 2000). Especially when both partners use flextime, it can serve as an ‘off-shifting’ strategy – that is, one partner takes care of the child(ren) while the other is at work (Pagnan et al., 2011). Partners’ schedule control before childbirth might primarily encourage the labor market re-entry after childbirth of mothers who, when planning their use of parental leave, already know the extent to which their partners’ control over working time can be used for care responsibilities. Mothers might therefore return to work sooner after childbirth if they and their partners have both already used flextime before childbirth. These arguments lead to the following predictions:

Hypothesis 1a: Mothers who used flextime before childbirth return to work sooner after childbirth.

Hypothesis 1b: Mothers return to work sooner after childbirth when they and their partners used flextime before childbirth.

However, owing to the explicit familialism of the German welfare state, the parental leave reform of 2007, and the expansion of public childcare, mothers’ schedule control might have become less decisive for their employment behavior – especially since 2007. Individual rights, services, and cash benefits provided by the welfare state not only shape individuals’ strategies of action and decision-making in life-course transitions (Leisering, 2003). Institutional theory states that statutory rights also generate a normative climate that enhances workers’ sense of entitlement to work–life support (Been et al., 2017b; Lewis and Smithson, 2001). Because employees often do not feel entitled to take advantage of organizational-level work–life policies (Brannen, 2005), and because the scope for managerial discretion in relation to the take-up of statutory rights is smaller than in relation to the take-up of organizational-level policies (Den Dulk et al., 2011), national-level policies might shape workers’ strategies of action more considerably than organizational arrangements.

Therefore, parental leave, along with the expansion of public childcare, might be more decisive for mothers’ work behavior than flextime. Not only has parental leave reform had a standardizing impact on mothers’ work behavior after childbirth, but also mothers’ need for flextime might be lower since public childcare has been expanded. Men’s organizational-level arrangements, by contrast, might have become more relevant since the policy reforms. From 2007 to 2014, the share of men taking parental leave increased considerably to over one third (Destatis, 2014), and fathers’ parental leave has become relatively normal at German workplaces, where social norms toward fathers providing childcare have changed, at least in part (Lott and Klenner, 2018). Moreover, the introduction of the father’s quota has had a positive impact on societal attitudes to gender equality as a whole (Unterhofer and Wrohlich, 2017). With regard to these behavioral and normative changes, men might have used schedule control more since 2007 to encourage their partners’ return to work after childbirth. Hence, I predict:

Hypothesis 2a: Mothers’ use of flextime before childbirth has become less relevant for their employment behavior since 2007.

Hypothesis 2b: Partners’ use of flextime before childbirth has encouraged maternal employment more since 2007.

Furthermore, owing to the ‘strong’ right to work part time in Germany, flextime prior to childbirth might be less decisive for mothers’ maintenance of work hours on returning to work after childbirth. In European countries with conservative welfare state regimes, such as Germany, the ethical discourse whereby support for working parents is seen as a moral right is more dominant than in liberal countries, such as the UK (Den Dulk et al., 2011). In addition, at workplaces in Germany, traditional gender norms often motivate managers to encourage mothers’ working time reduction (Lott and Klenner, 2018). Women in Germany might therefore be more successful in exercising their right to work part time, and schedule control before childbirth might play a less important role for their employment behavior after childbirth. Based on these arguments, I predict:

Hypothesis 3: Mothers reduce their previous work hours after childbirth – even if they (or their partners) used flextime before childbirth.

Empirical strategy

Data and sample

The present study used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP; version 31; http://www.diw.de/soep), a representative panel study of households in Germany. In the SOEP, more than 12,000 households and 32,000 persons are interviewed on a yearly basis. The SOEP started in the then Federal Republic of Germany in 1984 and was expanded in 1990 to include the territory of the former German Democratic Republic (Haisken-DeNew and Frick, 2005).

The sample for the present study comprised female respondents in heterosexual couples who gave birth during the observation period and who had been employed before childbirth. Because employees in Germany are allowed to work part time between paid parental leave months and to divide the months of unpaid parental leave, employees can have several parental leave periods for one child. As the focus of the present study was on mothers’ employment behavior after childbirth, only the first parental leave period after the first observed childbirth was taken into account. The take-up of parental leave was measured monthly, and a dataset suitable for event history analysis was constructed. Parental leave was observed for each person on a monthly basis. Parental leave begins with the first month after childbirth when mothers are allowed to return to gainful employment – that is, after the mandatory maternity leave of eight weeks. Observations after the last month of parental leave were censored.

All female respondents in the analytical sample had had contractual working hours and employment income before childbirth. Employees without contractual working hours, for whom formal working time arrangements might be less important, were excluded from the analysis. Self-employed persons were also excluded from the analysis, because they do not have contractual working hours. As one aim of the study was to examine the role of partners’ working time arrangements, lone mothers were excluded from the analysis.

The sample comprised 8014 person-months in the years 2003–2013. In the sample, 720 mothers with childbirth were observed, of whom 239 had already returned to paid employment after childbirth. Those who had not returned to the labor market had the status ‘homemaker,’ ‘unemployed,’ or ‘in education.’ One hundred and two of those mothers who had returned to work after childbirth had maintained their previous work hours; 124 had reduced their pre-childbirth work hours. Only 13 mothers had increased their work hours after childbirth; they were assigned to the category ‘work hours maintenance.’ The majority of mothers had taken parental leave. Only 39 mothers had not done so, but had instead returned to work directly after maternity leave. They were included in the analysis, with zero months of parental leave. The years 2003–2013 were chosen because flextime was observed only in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2013. For the years 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010, the information about flextime in the previous year was used. Around 19% of the women (n = 140) had used flextime before childbirth, and 22% (n = 160) had partners who had done so. Sixty-three couples were observed where both partners had used flextime before childbirth. Sixty-five mothers who had used flextime before childbirth had returned to work after childbirth; 40 of these had reduced their previous work hours. Fifty-five mothers whose partners had used flextime before childbirth had returned to work; 35 of these had reduced their previous work hours. Owing to the small number of observations for flextime, the analysis could not be restricted to the first childbirth, but had to take all childbirths during the observation period into account. Forty-one% of the mothers had had their first child, 35% their second child, 16% their third child, and 8% their fourth child or more. A control for the number of previous children was therefore introduced into the models, as well as a control for whether mothers had previously worked full time or part time (see below).

Events of interest

Two events were of interest in the present study: first, the return to gainful employment after childbirth; second, the return to gainful employment after childbirth with a reduction of previous contractual work hours or with the maintenance of previous contractual work hours. The variable for return to gainful employment had two values, 0 and 1. The value 0 was assigned to mothers who had not returned to the labor market after childbirth, but rather were still on parental leave at the end of the observation period or had resigned from their jobs to stay at home, search for a new job, or pursue initial or further vocational training or a university degree. The value 1 was assigned to mothers who had returned to employment after childbirth. The variable for return to gainful employment with or without reduction of contractual work hours had three values, 0, 1, and 2. The value 0 was assigned to mothers who had not returned to the labor market after childbirth. The value 1 was assigned to mothers who had returned to work with shorter hours, and the value 2 was assigned to those who had maintained their previous work hours upon returning to work after childbirth. Minor reductions in work hours of up to two hours were also classified as ‘work hours maintenance.’ Contractual work hours rather than actual work hours were considered because the focus of the present study was on mothers’ formal working time reductions. Moreover, workers with a contractual working time reduction might actually work longer hours (Kelliher and Anderson, 2010), in which case the information on actual work hours would bias the results. Table A1, which is available online as a data supplement, shows all variables used in the analyses.

Time on parental leave

The duration variable in the analysis was time on parental leave in months. In order to include in the sample the mothers who had returned to the labor market directly after mandatory maternity leave, the time variable had the value 0 for the month before the first month of parental leave. All time periods started with the value 0. For mothers who re-entered the labor market directly after maternity leave, the time variable had the value 0. The months between parental leave periods where mothers had the status ‘homemaker’ were included in the parental leave period. Up to nine months of ‘homemaker’ status, when preceded and followed by parental leave, were counted as parental leave months. One hundred and eighty-seven mothers had the status ‘homemaker’ between parental leave periods.

Flextime

Use of flextime before childbirth was the main explanatory variable in the analysis. Use of flextime is favored over access to flextime, because mothers who already used flextime before childbirth can better assess the extent to which it actually helps them to combine work and family and whether the arrangement is supported by their supervisors. Use of flextime was measured by the survey questions asking respondents whether they had determined their work schedules within a given time frame. The variable had the value 1 when the respondent had used flextime before childbirth. In the SOEP, information on flextime is available for mothers and their partners.

Parental leave reform

In order to test whether the effect of flextime use before childbirth changed after the parental leave reform in 2007, a variable was used that measured the year of childbirth (0 = 2003–2006; 1 = 2007–2013).

Control variables

The information about women’s job- and sociodemographic characteristics before childbirth was taken into account. Higher job status is generally related to higher levels of schedule control (Kelly and Moen, 2007; Ortega, 2009; Schieman, 2006). Women’s status (i.e. income, education, and workplace position) was therefore controlled for. Workplace position was measured by employees’ job authority (0 = no job authority; 1 = management responsibilities; and 2 = extensive management responsibilities). Women’s status position was also controlled for using the ISCO–08 classification with the following categories: 1) Managers and professionals (reference category); 2) Technicians and associate professionals; 3) Clerical support workers; 4) Services and sales workers; 5) Craft and related trades workers, plant and machine operators and assemblers, and elementary occupations. Educational attainment was measured in three categories: 1 = primary, 2 = secondary, and 3 = tertiary education. Income was measured by individual annual pre-tax labor income (adjusted for price changes), including all wages and benefits. Status also depends on whether mothers work full time or part time (Williams et al., 2013). The number of hours worked per week before childbirth was therefore controlled for using a variable with the values 1 = full time (35 hours or more per week); 2 = substantial part time (35 to 21 hours per week); 3 = marginal part time (20 hours or less per week). Also included was a control variable measuring whether women had a so-called ‘mini job’ – that is, marginal employment with a wage threshold of 450 euros that is generally exempt from otherwise mandatory types of insurance (e.g. health insurance and social security insurance), with the exception of pension insurance (but with the option of exemption from pension insurance on application). Further control variables measured whether respondents had a second job, a permanent contract, and whether they worked in the public sector. To account for segregation of the labor market, the sector in which women worked was controlled for based on the two-digit NACE classification, that is: retail; health/education; industry sector including metal, chemical, and electronic industries; service industries; insurance and banking sectors. Moreover, because women might change employers if flexible working time arrangements were not favorable in their current job, I controlled for whether women had changed employers during the 12 months before childbirth or during parental leave.

Various household characteristics before childbirth were also controlled for, namely: the individual labor earnings of the mothers and their partners; the number of children (0 = no children, 1 = one child, 2 = two children, and 3 = three or more children); the age of the youngest child in the household (0–2 years and 3–4 years); and marital status. Two variables for age and age squared were used in the models. The SOEP encompasses various subsamples (e.g. to refresh the panel or to integrate high income households or households with young children), and a control for these subsamples was included in the analysis. Finally, I controlled for the number of total parental leave periods for one child.

Method

Event history modeling techniques were employed for the analysis of the timing of events (Blossfeld and Rohwer, 2002). Event history analysis is based on longitudinal data that record the timing of the occurrence of an event of interest (Steele, 2005). The advantage of event history modeling techniques is that they deal with the problem of right-censored cases, where individuals may not yet have experienced the event of interest (Blossfeld and Rohwer, 2002), for example because they dropped out of the sample or the study ended. Event history analysis can be used to describe the duration until the event of interest occurs. The duration is the time that the individual has a likelihood of experiencing the event of interest until the occurrence of the event. In the present study, the duration was the time that mothers were on parental leave until they returned to the labor market. The duration can be described with the survivor function based on Kaplan–Meier estimates. Event history analysis can also be used to study why some individuals – in this case mothers – are more likely than others to experience the event of interest. Hazard models, for example discrete-time (multinomial) logistic regression models, use explanatory variables to predict the likelihood of experiencing the event of interest at a certain point in time. In the present study, the impact of the use of flextime before childbirth on maternal return to work, and on return to work with versus without reduced hours was assessed. Discrete-time logistic regression models were applied to estimate the likelihood of returning to the labor market, and discrete-time multinomial logistic regression models were applied to estimate the competing likelihoods of maintaining previous work hours versus reducing previous work hours, dependent on time-invariant covariates.

The analysis was performed as follows: To answer the research question as to whether mothers’ and their partners’ use of flextime before childbirth increased the chances of mothers’ early return to work in Germany, I estimated survivor curves for staying out of the labor market with and without flextime (Figure 1). The hazard rate of entering gainful employment was then estimated. To answer the research question as to whether the relationship between the use of flextime before childbirth and maternal employment had changed since the introduction of paid parental leave in 2007, I estimated the survivor curve for staying out of the labor market with and without pre-childbirth flextime use before 2007 and from 2007–2013 (Figure 2) and introduced an interaction between flextime and the period effect into the event history model. Finally, the research question as to whether the use of flextime before childbirth encouraged mothers to maintain rather than reduce previous work hours was answered by estimating the hazard rate of returning to work after childbirth with or without reduced work hours.

Figure 1.

Estimated survivor curve for staying out of the labor market after childbirth.

Figure 2.

Estimated survivor curve for staying out of the labor market after childbirth before 2007 and from 2007 to 2013.

The results for mothers’ labor market re-entry after childbirth are shown in Tables 1 and 2; the results for changes in work hours are presented in Table 3. The complete regression models can be found in Tables A2, A3, and A4 in the online appendix. A robustness check, where work hours maintenance was restricted to zero changes in the previous working time, is shown in Appendix Table A5.

Table 1.

Discrete-time event history analysis of mothers’ likelihood of returning to work after childbirth.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 2
Previous working time arrangement
Flextime – women	1.486*	1.503*	1.588*
	(0.27)	(0.27)	(0.33)
Flextime – men		0.961	1.029
		(0.17)	(0.22)
Flextime – women X Flextime – men			0.849
			(0.30)
Duration of parental leave	1.053***	1.053***	1.053***
	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)
Constant	0.577	0.566	0.592
	(1.90)	(1.86)	(1.95)
Pseudo R²	0.068	0.068	0.068
N	8014	8014	8014

Data source: German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) 2003–2013.

Discrete-time logistic model; odds ratios; hazard rate for the likelihood of returning to work. Standard errors in parentheses. Controlled for previous job characteristics (job authority, work hours, status position, individual annual labor income, marginal employment, sector, second job, permanent contract, change of employer before or during parental leave); previous sociodemographic characteristics (age, age squared and education) and previous household characteristics (annual household income, marital status, number of children, age of youngest child); number of parental leave periods for one child; 2007 and thereafter; and samples. Unweighted.

p < .10.

p < .05.

p < .01.

***

p < .001.

Table 2.

Discrete-time event history analysis of mothers’ likelihood of returning to work after childbirth before 2007 and from 2007 to 2013.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4
Previous working time arrangement
Flextime – women	1.503*	1.550	1.506*	1.539
	(0.27)	(0.45)	(0.27)	(0.45)
Flextime – men	0.961	0.962	0.998	0.992
	(0.17)	(0.17)	(0.30)	(0.29)
2007 and thereafter	1.358+	1.377	1.378+	1.388
	(0.24)	(0.28)	(0.27)	(0.29)
Flextime – women X 2007 and thereafter		0.948		0.963
		(0.35)		(0.35)
Flextime – men X 2007 and thereafter			0.937	0.948
			(0.34)	(0.34)
Duration of parental leave	1.053***	1.053***	1.053***	1.053***
	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)
Constant	0.566	0.539	0.527	0.515
	(1.86)	(1.80)	(1.77)	(1.74)
Pseudo R²	0.068	0.068	0.068	0.068
N	8014	8014	8014	8014

Data source: German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) 2003–2013.

Discrete-time logistic model; odds ratios; hazard rate for the likelihood of returning to work. Standard errors in parentheses. Controlled for previous job characteristics (job authority, work hours, status position, individual annual labor income, marginal employment, sector, second job, permanent contract, change of employer before or during parental leave); previous sociodemographic characteristics (age, age squared, and education) and previous household characteristics (annual household income, marital status, number of children, age of youngest child); number of parental leave periods for one child; and samples. Unweighted.

p < .10.

p < .05.

p < .01.

***

p < .001.

Table 3.

Discrete-time event history analysis of mothers’ likelihood of returning to work after childbirth with work hours reduction vs work hours maintenance.

	Model 1		Model 2		Model 3
	Reduction	Maintenance	Reduction	Maintenance	Reduction	Maintenance
Previous working time arrangement
Flextime – women	1.558+	1.391			1.528+	1.472
	(0.38)	(0.40)			(0.38)	(0.42)
Flextime – men			1.206	0.932	1.074	0.834
			(0.30)	(0.25)	(0.28)	(0.22)
2007 and thereafter	1.620*	1.074	1.656*	1.061	1.614*	1.068
	(0.37)	(0.29)	(0.38)	(0.29)	(0.37)	(0.29)
Duration of parental leave	1.090***	1.012	1.089***	1.011	1.090***	1.012
	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)
Constant	3.645	0.003	4.287	0.004	3.584	0.002
	(16.30)	(0.02)	(19.45)	(0.02)	(16.04)	(0.01)
Pseudo R²	0.099		0.097		0.099
N	8014		8014		8014

Data source: German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) 2003–2013.

Discrete-time logistic model; odds ratios; hazard rate for the likelihood of returning to work with and without reduced work hours. Standard errors in parentheses. Controlled for previous job characteristics (job authority, work hours, status position, individual annual labor income, marginal employment, sector, second job, permanent contract, change of employer before or during parental leave); previous sociodemographic characteristics (age, age squared and education) and previous household characteristics (annual household income, marital status, number of children, age of youngest child); number of parental leave periods for one child; and samples. Unweighted.

p < .10.

p < .05.

p < .01.

***

p < .001.

Results

Mothers’ return to the labor market after childbirth

Figure 1 illustrates the survivor function of staying out of the labor market with versus without mothers’ use of flextime before childbirth (Graph A) and with versus without partners’ use of flextime before childbirth (Graph B). The graphs show that mothers generally did re-enter the labor market with time – especially after around one year on parental leave and, again, after two years on parental leave. The graphs also reveal that survival on parental leave was affected by mothers’ use of flextime before childbirth. During the first year of parental leave, and even more often during the second and third years, mothers who had used flextime before childbirth re-entered the labor market sooner than mothers who had not (Graph A). According to the chi-squared test, the survivor functions were significantly different (prob > chi² = .003). The probability that women would remain outside the labor market after the first year was 53% with flextime use before childbirth and 68% without. After two years, the probability was 31% with flextime use before childbirth and 41% without.

This finding is supported by the multivariate results (Table 1). The use of flextime before childbirth was positively related to mothers’ labor market re-entry after childbirth (Table 1, Model 1). The effect was statistically significant at a confidence level of 95% and remained significant when their partners’ use of flextime before childbirth was included (Table 1, Model 2). The hazard ratio for flextime use before childbirth was 1.503 in Model 2. Hence, the likelihood of labor market re-entry for women who used flextime before childbirth was almost 50% higher than for women who did not. Hypothesis 1a is thus supported: Mothers who had used flextime before childbirth were indeed more likely to return to work after childbirth than those who had not, and they returned sooner.

Partners’ use of flextime before childbirth, by contrast, did not have an impact on mothers’ return to work. The survivor functions (Figure 1, Graph B) for staying out of work with versus without partners’ flextime use before childbirth were not significantly different (prob > chi² = .920). In the multivariate analysis, men’s use of flextime before childbirth was negatively related to women’s labor market re-entry after childbirth (Table 1, Model 2), but the effects were not statistically significant. Moreover, the interaction between mothers’ and their partners’ use of flextime before childbirth was also negative and non-significant. Thus, there is no empirical evidence to support Hypothesis 1b, which assumed that mothers return to work sooner when they and their partners used flextime before childbirth.

Mothers’ return to the labor market after the introduction of the parental leave reform

The analysis revealed that mothers’ use of flextime before childbirth had a positive impact on their employment behavior primarily before the parental leave reform was introduced in 2007. Mothers whose children were born before 2007, and who had used flextime before childbirth, returned to the labor market sooner than mothers who did not use flextime before childbirth (Figure 2, Graph A). According to the chi-squared test, the survivor functions were significantly different (prob > chi² = .003). The probability that women would stay out of the labor market after the first year was 49% when flextime was used before childbirth and 73% when this was not the case. After two years, the probability was 26% with pre-childbirth flextime use and 45% without. From 2007 onwards, the use of flextime before childbirth was less decisive for maternal employment after childbirth. According to the chi-squared test, the survivor functions for mothers with versus without flextime use before childbirth were not significantly different (prob > chi² = .261) (Figure 2, Graph B).

Partners’ use of flextime before childbirth did not have a statistically significant effect on maternal employment before or after the parental leave reform of 2007. The survivor functions were not significantly different for the time period before (prob > chi² = .554) and after the reform was introduced (prob > chi² = .584). The multivariate analyses indicated that partners’ use of flextime before childbirth had a negative effect on maternal employment before and after the introduction of parental leave reform (Table 2, Model 3). However, these effects were not statistically significant, and the effect sizes were relatively small. Owing to the relatively small number of observations, the interaction terms of the multivariate analyses were not statistically significant (Table 2). Based on the descriptive analysis, there is thus empirical evidence in support of Hypothesis 2a: Mothers’ flextime use before childbirth has become less relevant for their employment behavior since the introduction of the parental leave reform in 2007. Hypothesis 2b, which assumed that partners’ use of flextime before childbirth had encouraged maternal employment more since 2007, is not confirmed.

Mothers’ return to the labor market after childbirth with or without reduction of previous work hours

The analysis revealed that the use of flextime before childbirth had a positive effect on both the maintenance and the reduction of work hours after childbirth. However, only the effect on reduced work hours was statistically significant at a confidence level of 90% (Table 3, Model 3). The likelihood that mothers would reduce their work hours was around 53% higher for mothers who had used flextime before childbirth than for those who had not. By contrast, partners’ use of flextime before childbirth had a positive effect on the reduction of mothers’ previous work hours and a negative effect on the maintenance of work hours (Table 3, Model 3). Again, effects were not statistically significant, and effect sizes were small (1.074 and .834, respectively). Hypothesis 3 is only partly supported: Mothers were likely to reduce their working hours after childbirth – even if they used flextime before childbirth. A robustness check, where work hours maintenance was defined as zero change in previous work hours, supported the above results (Table A5 in the online appendix).

Conclusion and discussion

How do national-level policies shape the role of flextime, as one form of schedule control, in mothers’ work behavior after childbirth? Using the example of Germany, the present study shows that generous welfare state policies diminish the relevance of flextime, which is one form of schedule control, for maternal employment after childbirth. According to the descriptive findings, before the introduction of 12 months’ parental leave in 2007 and the expansion of public childcare, women who had used flextime before childbirth returned to work sooner. Hence, the positive effect on maternal employment of mothers’ flextime use before childbirth was higher in the time period before the policy reforms. Moreover, unlike in the UK (Chung and van der Horst, 2018), the use of flextime before childbirth did not encourage mothers to maintain previous work hours. The relatively strong right to work part time in Germany seems to be a powerful incentive for mothers’ part time work. Finally, men’s flextime use before childbirth appears to play a minor role in mothers’ labor market re-entry after childbirth. This finding contradicts previous studies that showed that men’s flexible work arrangements supported their partners’ work schedule and careers (Han, 2004; Langner, 2018; Moen and Yu, 2000).

The present results indicate that generous national-level work–life balance policies can diminish the relevance of organizational-level work–life balance policies. So far, institutional theory and, more specifically, the concept of a sense of entitlement to work–life support, has been used primarily to explain the provision, adoption, and support of organizational-level policies by employers (Ollier-Malaterre et al., 2013b). In the present study, institutional theory was applied to explain workers’ actual take-up of organizational-level work–life balance policies and the possible trade-off between national-level and organizational-level policies. In addition, the life-course theoretical framework was used, which assumes that welfare states have a strong impact on individuals’ self-interpretation, decision-making, and strategies of action and, thus, a standardizing effect on life-course transitions. In the transition to parenthood, therefore, generous national-level policies, such as wage compensation for persons on parental leave and the provision of public childcare, shape women’s strategies of action more considerably than do organizational-level arrangements, not least because employees have a stronger sense of entitlement to use statutory rights. Furthermore, against the background of the unequal allocation of paid work between women and men in Germany (OECD, 2017), and welfare state policies such as the joint taxation of married couples with full income splitting, which discourages women’s (full-time) employment, the generous national-level policies appear to be preserving and reinforcing women’s role as the main caregiver rather than changing it. As a consequence, partners’ flextime matters less for women’s work behavior after childbirth. Even though the parental leave reform was aimed at increasing gender equality, the study suggests that the father’s quota has not been powerful enough to change traditional gender arrangements considerably.

The limitations of the present study should be mentioned. First, owing to the relatively small number of employees in the sample who had used flextime before childbirth, the number of observations was small. Second, the analysis could not take unobserved heterogeneity into account, which may have biased the results. In future research, more detailed longitudinal data on the uptake of parental leave and schedule control is needed that allows unobserved heterogeneity to be controlled for. Third, the effects of the parental leave reform and the expansion of public childcare could not be disentangled. Fourth, although a country comparison between Germany and the UK would have enabled analysis of cross-country differences in the impact of flexible work arrangements, this was not possible in the present study owing to the limited amount of UK longitudinal data on this subject to date. Future research is needed to further investigate the role of the institutional context in the effectiveness of flexible work arrangements.

The present study has nevertheless taken a first step in analyzing the role of the welfare state for organizational work–life balance policies. The results suggest that, to be more effective in supporting employees, schedule control should be supported by the state. In Germany, a proposed Working Time Choice Act (Wahlarbeitszeitgesetz), which would give employees greater choice in relation to working time and location (Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, 2017), is currently being debated by lawmakers; it would take the needs of employees and the needs of businesses into account when schedule control is designed and implemented at the workplace. Flexible work arrangements are of increasing importance for employers in Germany, who face recruiting challenges owing to skill shortages in the workforce, meaning they would also benefit from such a right. Furthermore, a legal right to schedule control could complement the right to part-time work. The present study indicates that part-time work is now a standard option for mothers in Germany – even for those who have schedule control with which to improve their work-life. The legal right to part-time work seems to have given renewed vigor to the ideal parent norm, according to which mothers are expected to prioritize family over work (Williams et al., 2013). A statutory right to schedule control would give workers in general, and mothers in particular, an effective alternative to part-time work, and thus enable them to avoid possible career disadvantages. Finally, a statutory right would strengthen schedule control as a work–life balance measure and would make employees’ own schedule control and that of their partners more beneficial. This solution alone, however, would be insufficient. A public and political debate is needed about a new standard working time that prevents the stigmatization of employees with shorter work hours. As long as part-time work is stigmatized at the workplace (Lott and Klenner, 2018; Williams et al., 2013), employees with major care responsibilities who need to reduce their working time, at least for a certain period, will face career disadvantages. A new standard working time that defines shorter work hours as normal would provide parents with the opportunity to choose the length of working time that best fits their family situation without harming their careers.

Supplemental Material

online_supp – Supplemental material for Is maternal labor market re-entry after childbirth facilitated by mothers’ and partners’ flextime?

Supplemental material, online_supp for Is maternal labor market re-entry after childbirth facilitated by mothers’ and partners’ flextime? by Yvonne Lott in Human Relations

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the reviewers and the editor for their valuable comments and suggestions that helped to improve the manuscript considerably. I would also like to thank Philipp Lersch, Daniel Seikel and the participants in the symposium ‘The Consequences of Flexible Working for Work-Life Balance and Work Capacity – What Works for Whom and Where?’ at the Work and Family Researchers Network 2018 Conference for their crucial comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

ORCID iD

Yvonne Lott

Yvonne Lott is head of the Gender Studies Unit and a researcher at the Hans Böckler Foundation in Germany. Her research deals with quantitative and qualitative analyses and cross-country comparison of flexible work arrangements and their outcomes, such as work-to-home spillover, work hours, income, and career progression from a gender perspective. Her work has been published in the European Sociological Review; the European Journal of Industrial Relations; Social Policy and Society; Community, Work & Family; and Social Indicators Research. [Email: yvonne-lott@boeckler.de]

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