Reconciliation of Work and Family Life Among Welfare Recipients in Germany. Determinants of Mothers' Ability to Leave the Benefit System Via Employment

In the first decade of the 21st century there have been reforms in German family and social policy towards an “adult worker model”, aimed at improving reconciliation of work and family, and linking receipt of welfare benefits more strongly on activation and labour market participation. Mothers receiving welfare benefits are subject to both new policies. In this paper it is investigated how these mothers succeed in entering the labour market, to what extent they are able to end their benefit receipt via employment and what the determinants are. Reconciliation of work and family life is a central area of political debate about reducing poverty among families and lone mothers in particular. Therefore the role of mothers’ child care responsibilities in the process of ending welfare benefit receipt is evaluated while controlling for individual labour market resources. Special emphasis is laid on the impact of child care infrastructure and labour market conditions.

In a first step, the probabilities to take up employment are estimated from administrative data for lone mothers and mothers living with a partner. Care responsibilities in the household and mothers’ labour market resources influence the process of labour market integration. Lone mothers are more likely to take up work when they don’t have young children in the household than mothers living with a partner. For both groups of mothers employment is predominantly not full-time.

In a second step, determinants of the probability to end benefit receipt with the new employment are estimated, taking into account that there is a selection process at the first step. Care responsibilities only play a minor role in this part of the process, while household size and characteristics of the new job (occupational prestige, working time) are of major importance.