Is part-time employment a temporary ‘stepping stone’ or a lasting ‘mommy track’? Legislation and mothers’ transition to full-time employment in Germany

Abstract

Research on reconciling family and employment debates if maternal part-time employment works as ‘stepping stone’ to full-time employment or as gateway to a long-term ‘mommy track’. We analyse how mothers’ transition from part-time to full-time employment is shaped by changing reconciliation legislations and how this is moderated by reconciliation-relevant factors like individual behaviours and macro conditions. We extend the literature on work–family reconciliation by investigating mothers’ employment behaviour after the birth of their last child, i.e., after the family formative phase. We draw upon Germany with its considerable regional and historical heterogeneity. Using event history methods on SOEP-data, we observe mothers who (re)enter part-time employment (i.e., up to 30 weekly working hours) after their last childbirth. Results suggest that the impact of reconciliation legislations depends on the moderation by other factors. Recent reconciliation-friendly legislations may have contributed to the polarization of maternal employment patterns: more and less employment-oriented mothers diverge sooner after childbirth than before. Legislations co-occur with increases both in childcare institutions and part-time culture, but their moderation effects compete. Hence, boosting part-time work as either a ‘stepping stone’ or a ‘mommy track’ requires a deep understanding of the mechanisms behind legislations as well as more explicit policy incentives.

Keywords

reconciliation of family and employment part-time employment full-time employment mothers family policy external childcare

Introduction

In many countries in the Global North, the reconciliation of family and employment is at the centre stage in scientific, public and intra-family debates on gender equality. Most societies perceive mothers as the parents who bear the main responsibility for childcare and, when required, for reconciling it with employment (Goldscheider et al., 2015). Thus, the demand for reconciliation-friendly legislations among women is high. However, there are many levers to such legislation, which, in turn, encounter a complex mélange of reconciliation-relevant factors, namely individual behaviours such as mothers’ employment-orientation, institutional conditions such as childcare facilities, and cultural aspects such as norms on caregiving and employment (Kremer, 2007).

Fostered by these impact factors, part-time employment has developed to be a quantitatively important female reconciliation strategy (Gallie et al., 2016), though its prevalence differs across countries. For example, some Scandinavian countries exhibit relatively low female part-time employment rates (e.g., 17.3% in Sweden, 18.7% in Finland) (OECD, 2020) while (mostly) German-speaking countries display fairly high rates of part-time work (e.g., 34.0% in Austria, 36.3% in Germany, 44.9% in Switzerland) (OECD, 2020).

Maternal part-time employment has, on the one hand, internationally been the greatest driver of female labour force participation (Blau and Kahn, 2013), often at the expense of full-time positions (Connolly and Gregory, 2008; Lechevalier, 2019). Though there may be a variety of reasons for working part-time instead full-time hours – like sparse labour market opportunities and other life course demands – a large share of mothers adduce reasons of caregiving responsibilities for their part-time employment (Lechevalier, 2019). Thereby, part-time work has facilitated high job satisfaction in mothers (Booth and Van Ours, 2013; Gallie et al., 2016) and many mothers frame their part-time employment as personal choice for the sake of motherhood (Webber and Williams, 2008).

On the other hand, mothers in part-time employment often face labour market penalties (Stier et al., 2001), often of lasting severity because many mothers retain their working hours permanently (Brehm, 2020). Specifically, part-time work has amplified vertical gender segregation (Blau and Kahn, 2013) and the statistical discrimination of women in the workforce (Dieckhoff et al., 2016). Research has found a multitude of occupational penalties which impact the subsequent work life course and beyond: in wages and returns to experience (Matteazzi et al., 2014; Fernández Kranz et al., 2015), in job positions, prestige, and contract type (Connolly and Gregory, 2008; Evertsson and Grunow, 2012; Fernández Kranz et al., 2015), in learning opportunities (Gallie et al., 2016), and consequently in old-age pensions (Madero-Cabib and Fasang, 2016). Hence, part-time jobs are de facto of lower occupational worth and mothers themselves consider part-time work as an occupationally ‘bad’ arrangement (Webber and Williams, 2008).

Hence, widespread female part-time employment turned out to be both boon and bane to gender equality, reflecting a ‘welfare state paradox’ (Mandel and Semyonov, 2006). It is thus crucial to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of part-time employment as a typical behaviour in female life courses. Maternal part-time employment may reflect a number of different strategies, depending on mothers’ aspirations and opportunities that define their interest in, attachment to, and prospects on the labour market. Most prominent therein are two strategies that represent polar opposites: a long-lasting, occupationally dead-end ‘mommy track’ to allow for quite extensive unpaid caregiving – i.e., non-occupationally caring for one’s own children at home – and a temporary part-time arrangement which acts as a ‘stepping stone’ into full-time employment (Kelle et al., 2017; Connolly and Gregory, 2010; O’Reilly and Bothfeld, 2002; Månsson and Ottosson, 2011).

In our study, we focus on mothers who (re)entered the labour market in part-time work – i.e., with up to 30 hours per week as per OECD-definition (Van Bastelaer et al., 1997) – and study their tendency to top up their working hours to full-time employment – i.e., more than 30 hours. Studies that assess such transitions in women have focused on behaviours after solely the first birth (Kelle et al., 2017), treat the presence of children, their parity or age as mere controls (O’Reilly and Bothfeld, 2002; Connolly and Gregory, 2010), or work without child-related aspects (Månsson and Ottosson, 2011). We add to research by studying mothers’ transitions after the birth of the last child. This allows us to understand their durable reconciliation patterns, leaving episodes between childbirths behind, because bridging behaviours in anticipation of subsequent births can bias or even thwart maternal employment (Brehm, 2020).

Our case study is Germany. The country has high female part-time employment rates, predominantly motivated by unpaid caregiving (Lechevalier, 2019). Because of its binational history, its federalism and its change of paradigm in family policy, Germany possesses an outstanding time series variation and cross-sectional heterogeneity in terms of legislations, institutions and culture. We examine mothers’ employment behaviour between 1992 and 2020, against the historical backdrop of social change towards reconciliation-friendly legislations in terms of entitlement to parental leave, parental allowances, and entitlement to external childcare.

Thus, our research questions inquire, first, how Germany’s reconciliation-friendly legislations between 1992 and 2020 influence the part-time employment behaviour of mothers after their last childbirth and, second, how this effect is moderated by reconciliation-relevant factors in terms of individual behaviours, reconciliation-relevant macro institutional conditions, and cultural aspects.

Theoretical background and working hypotheses

The German context

Germany possesses a considerable cross-sectional heterogeneity in reconciliation-relevant institutions and culture. The variety is rooted in its federalism and particularly its two-country history of a relatively conservative West and a quite egalitarian East Germany. Until their reunification in 1990, the two German countries differed considerably regarding women’s reconciliation of family and employment.

East Germany was a socialist state with a wide array of facilitations, incentives, but also strains to achieve full-time (female) employment after childbirth (Rosenfeld et al., 2004). This bequeathed a strong norm to reconcile family and full-time employment and a relatively rich infrastructure of external full-time childcare. Thus, at reunification, East Germany started from a dual earner reference model similar to the Nordic countries.

In contrast, West Germany pursued a model of a gender-specific intra-familial labour division similar to Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The provision of external (full-time) childcare institutions has historically been very low. A joint taxation and co-insurance system has been rewarding large income differences between spouses. The societal gender culture has also been fostering gendered family arrangements, with mothers being expected and expecting themselves to be committed to unpaid childcare and being relatively sceptical about external childcare (Pfau-Effinger, 1998).

In the process of reunification, West German reconciliation legislations were implemented to East Germany. Many authors have found a narrowing but persistent East–West divide (Matysiak and Steinmetz, 2006). The historical German–German differences have still been reflecting in both the distribution of individual reconciliation behaviours and their cultural and structural factors. Less attention has been paid to regional variation within and across the German–German dichotomy. We assume, however, that these persistent differences are superjacent to regional variation and that these German–German differences will be fully reflected by the moderators, which we introduce in the final three sub-sections of this section.

Reconciliation legislations: The development of work–family policies

Reconciliation-facilitating legislations encompass entitlements to parental leave, parental allowances, and entitlement to childcare – a signalling factor beyond the mere availability of external childcare, which we examine separately. These legislations may support mothers’ (re)entry to the labour market and strengthen their continuity in and commitment to employment in general. Admittedly, such reforms in Germany collide with decades-old legislations that form obstacles against significant maternal employment. For example, the persisting system of spouses’ joint taxation and insurance recomposes non-existent and small secondary incomes (Dearing et al., 2007). Also, few legislations explicitly address maternal working hours. Still, there has been a considerable progression of Germany’s reconciliation legislations since the early 1990s. Depending on the year of childbirth, mothers are subject to these legislations, which thus can be assumed to resonate in their employment behaviour. Consequently, we consider childbirth cohorts for which legislations are in effect, rather than periods of work–family policies.

Specifically, in 1992, a 3-year parental leave (Erziehungsurlaub) with a 2-year fixed allowance (Erziehungsgeld) set a norm of a prolonged sheltered caregiving episode. This norm contributed to increasingly homogenous reconciliation behaviours among West German mothers, especially among the less educated (Brehm, 2020). In turn, the already relatively homogeneous, employment-oriented reconciliation patterns of East German mothers experienced a shift towards a longer episode of non-employment after childbirth (Falk and Schaeper, 2001). The policy signalled that, for several years, one parent – the female – was allocated to caregiving rather than working. Note that the policy did not offer a legislative follow-up subsequent to that time, keeping many mothers in unpaid caregiving. Part-time employment was not a standard way of labour (yet), but rather a temporary bridge. Thus, we assume that part-time working mothers transitioned (back) to full-time employment relatively frequently. For reasons of better readability throughout the article, we label this cohort ‘most gender-divided’ as a reference for the following cohorts.

In 1996, the parental leave-reform was reinforced by an entitlement to external childcare for at least three-year-olds. Accordingly, we label this cohort ‘3-year family phase’. The reform secured access to half-day childcare; it thereby signalled and facilitated that maternal part-time work was the most possible, desirable and durable arrangement. Hence, we assume transitions (back) to full-time work to decrease compared to the previous policy cohort.

The year 2001 marked a turnaround which we subsume under the label ‘furthering secondary earners’: parental leave was flexibilised and parental allowance could be requested for 1 year at a higher rate instead of the usual 2-year payment (Elternzeit). The reform was found to herald a paradigm change from prolonged to shorter episodes of unpaid caregiving (Ziefle and Gangl, 2014) and thus decreased mothers’ distance from the labour market. This increased commitment to work might have also increased mothers’ understanding of part-time work as a temporary arrangement, encouraging them to top up hours. Adversely, in the same year, the EU-principle of treating part-time and full-time employment equally was implemented in the Part-time and Fixed-term Employment Act (Teilzeit-Befristungsgesetz). While the act may have intended more gender employment equality, we expect it to have fostered part-time work among only one gender, mainly mothers – depicting an example for the ‘welfare state paradox’. Thus, we assume the act to amplify part-time work in terms of both prevalence and duration, reducing the tendency of mothers to top up working hours. In sum, both 2001 reforms may counteract each other.

In 2007, a (capped) income-contingent allowance was introduced (Elterngeld). It replaced 67% of the caregiving parent’s net income for 1 year and allowed for another 2 months if both parents took leave. The reform ultimately marked a change in paradigm in (West) Germany’s legislations from conservativism that attributes several years to mothers’ unpaid caregiving to a Scandinavian-style egalitarianism (Ostner, 2006) that aims at a labour market (re)entry after only 1 year. Hence, we label the cohort ‘paradigm change to egalitarianism’. We assume this reform to reinforce mothers’ commitment to the labour market: the earlier (re)entries to work might initialise more interesting work opportunities, encouraging more transitions to full-time employment to pursue them.

As of 2013, the entitlement to external childcare was extended to one- and two-year-olds, strengthening the legal framework for mothers to (re)enter employment sooner after childbirth. Shortly after, parental leaves and allowances were adjusted to encourage parents to converge in their shares of leave episodes and working hours (2015, Elterngeld Plus). We label the cohort ‘extended reconciliation’. Similar to the previous reform, we assume mechanisms of increased occupational commitment and opportunities following an earlier (re)entry to work. Thus, we expect these reforms to further transitions from part-time to full-time employment even more.

In sum, we assume a u-shaped impact of work–family policies on mothers’ likelihood to top up working hours (H1): the transitions to full-time work would decrease across the first two policy cohorts (1992–2000), stagnate due to adverse effects for the cohorts of 2001–2006, and increase across the following two policy cohorts (2007–2020).

Individual reconciliation behaviour: Duration of unpaid caregiving

Specific behaviours are shaped by internalised mind-sets like individual-level ideologies, including values, attitudes and personal motherhood conceptions (Davis and Greenstein, 2009; Lück et al., 2017). These are subject to inter-individual differences between mothers (e.g., Hakim, 2011), and intra-individual differences across the life course (Baxter et al., 2015). They are also changing inter-generationally as a result of a learning process that also interacts with policies (Brooks and Bolzendahl, 2004). Of course, behaviours are not only shaped by internalised mind-sets, but also by individual circumstances and societal conditions like the personal earning necessities and possibilities as well as labour-market characteristics. Our focus, however, is on the impact of individual-level behaviours as proxy for individual ideologies toward work–family reconciliation which in turn would predict subsequent reconciliation behaviour. Against this backdrop, we consider mothers’ speed of (re)entry to the labour market following their last childbirth and assume that it moderates the impact of reconciliation legislations: the shorter length of time that mothers were in episodes of unpaid caregiving, the more likely they are to translate reconciliation-friendly policies into increasing their working hours from part-time to full-time employment (H2).

Reconiliation institutions: The expansion of (full-time) external childcare

Beyond the signalling of an entitlement to external childcare, it is the availability of childcare that forms a basis to disburdening mothers from the amount of caregiving and to allocating time to employment. Thereby, childcare availability generally facilitates maternal employment – and full-time childcare facilitates full-time employment (Hipp et al., 2015). While reconciliation legislations affect the whole of Germany, the country is highly heterogeneous in terms of reconciliation institutions, because of its two-country history as well as because of its federalism. Each of the 16 federal states has a high number of jurisdictions, including many aspects of external childcare, which allow integration of state heterogeneities, such as population structure and urbanity, prosperity and prevalent industries, as well as religious traditions. Hence, childcare institutions vary widely across federal states, even within East and West Germany.

Regarding infant childcare, regional rates were below 2% in West German states around reunification. In East Germany, in contrast, they were at 56% in 1989, much of which were full-time services (Deutscher Bundestag, 1991). In East Germany, infant childcare was partially removed and reduced following the economic crisis after reunification. Meanwhile, in West Germany its distribution remained very low throughout the 1990s. It was only in 2006, preparing the entitlement in 2013, that infant childcare was expanded in both distribution and hours. As a result, in 2021, full-time infant childcare rates ranged in West Germany between 9% (Bavaria) and 25% (Hamburg), and in East Germany between 26% (Berlin¹) and 49% (Thuringia) (see Appendix 1(c) and Destatis, 2019; Destatis, 2022b).

Regarding childcare for kindergartners, i.e., aged 3 to 6, the 1996 entitlement in the ‘3-year family phase’ cohort launched or amplified an external childcare expansion in West Germany. By the end of the 1990s, childcare rates had increased and converged from, in some states, little above 50% at the beginning of the decade to well above 80% in all of them. Thereby, conditions caught up with standards that had existed in East Germany for many years. Nonetheless, East and West Germany continued to differ regarding the scope of external childcare: while a considerable share of childcare institutions in the East offered full-time caregiving, this remained relatively uncommon in the West (Hank et al., 2001). In 2021, full-time childcare for kindergartners ranged in West Germany between 24% (Baden-Wuerttemberg) and 56% (Saarland), and in East Germany between 59% (Berlin) and 92% (Thuringia) (see Appendix 1(c) and Destatis, 2019; Destatis, 2022b).

External childcare has been known to facilitate (re)entries to employment after childbirth (Ziefle and Gangl, 2014; Hipp et al., 2015). Thus, the question of whether mothers interpret reconciliation-friendly legislations in a way that encourages them to increase their working hours, depends on whether the availability of full-time childcare allows for such deliberations. Thus, reconciliation-friendly legislations might not take full effect in supporting mothers’ full-time employment unless the reconciliation institutions also enable this step. Hence, we assume full-time childcare to moderate the impact of reconciliation legislations: a greater availability of full-time childcare increases mothers’ means to translate reconciliation-friendly policies into increasing their working hours from part-time to full-time employment (H3).

Reconciliation culture: The prevalence of female part-time employment

Reconciliation culture is shaped by a society’s gender culture and the associated ideal-typical conception of motherhood (Lück et al., 2017). Following decades of the rise and decline of a gendered model of caregiving and employment (Trappe et al., 2015), gender-specific and egalitarian norms compete in Germany today (Grunow et al., 2018). Therein, maternal part-time employment reflects a female additional earner and main caregiver model, a middle way – if you will – between traditional and egalitarian norms. A wide distribution of part-time employment contributes to the overall chances and normality of (re)entries to and continuances in part-time employment, establishing and consolidating a ‘standard’ mommy track (Stier et al., 2001). Therefore, the distribution of female part-time employment rates reflects the respective part-time employment culture.

At reunification, female part-time employment rates amounted to 34% in West Germany (in 1990), but only to 17% in full-time oriented East Germany (in 1991). Since then, part-time employment has disseminated in all federal states, especially in East Germany: in 2021, female part-time employment rates varied in West Germany between 43% (Hamburg) and 52% (Schleswig-Holstein), and in East Germany between 35% (Saxony-Anhalt) and 43% (Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania) (see Destatis, 2022a).

A greater salience of the part-time culture – i.e., a higher regional prevalence of part-time work – can be assumed to reinforce the maternal standard way of part-time rather than full-time employment. In light of this self-enhancing norm, we hypothesise that a higher prevalence of part-time work also reduces mothers’ means to translate reconciliation-friendly policies into increasing their working hours from part-time to full-time employment (H4).

Data and methods

Data and sample

We investigate our research questions using the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP v37). Since 1984, SOEP is a representative longitudinal study which, over the years, has been supplemented by additional, sometimes oversampled survey groups (Kroh et al., 2018) such as the sample of the East German population in 1990. In addition to the annual surveys, SOEP also contains retrospective biographical data on, e.g., childbirths and working experience, which is gathered across respondent’s life course. This enables us to include information from before the actual survey period. For the following analyses, we use waves from 1992 to 2020.²

We restrict our sample to women who gave birth to at least one child during that period and who (re)entered part-time employment thereafter. To be able to observe their employment behaviour after the family-formation phase and to reduce the number of women who merely bridge the spacing between several childbirths, we only include mothers whose birth and employment biographies we can observe for at least 5 years after the birth of their last child. For mothers who could be observed for a longer period of time, we seize the full observation period. Thus, we analyse women whose last childbirth was in 2015 at the latest. To ensure that the applied assumption of capturing last childbirths does not bias results, we test their robustness using a 10-year window time after the last birth. Despite the consequential reduction of both sample and observable policies, the results prove stable (see Appendix 4).

We focus on mothers in part-time employment. In line with the OECD-definition (Van Bastelaer et al., 1997), 1 to 30 hours per week are considered part-time work; this definition includes marginal employment. We aim to understand mothers’ transition to full-time employment, i.e., when their working hours exceed this threshold.³ This strategy, by design, results in sample selectivity that changes over time. We incorporate this both descriptively (the first subsection of the fourth section) and by using competing risk analyses on part- and full-time work, and thereby embed our study in the ‘big picture’ of the issue of maternal reconciliation behaviour (see Appendix 4).

Following these specifications, our analysis sample consists of 1,990 women, for 476 of whom we can observe a transition from part-time to full-time employment. With regard to mothers’ childbirth and employment information, we use monthly SOEP data. Regarding macro variables and most controls, we use monthly information whenever available and combine it with yearly data, extrapolated to each month, when monthly information is missing.

Method and dependent variable

To understand the transitions from part-time to full-time employment and their determinants, we use event history methods. Our population at risk are mothers in part-time employment with up to 30 weekly working hours. The process time, i.e., the baseline, is the duration since (re)entry to the labour market into part-time employment. An event (our dependent variable) occurs when the number of weekly working hours changes to 31 or more. We censor mothers at their last interview without a transition. Additionally, we censor 666 mothers who dropped out of the labour market to non-employment for more than 3 months: up to that point, we consider non-employed episodes as bridges between jobs rather than dropouts.

For a general overview of the data, we use descriptive bivariate analyses as well as Kaplan-Meier survival estimates. In multivariable analyses, we estimate piecewise constant exponential models, which allow us to study the impact of several juxtaposing or consecutive events and transitions as well as more gradual changes at any point in time while the women are at risk. While exponential models typically assume constant hazard rates $r$ for women to experience the transition $k$ , a piecewise constant exponential model can assess changing rates by dividing the observation time $t$ into $L$ intervals $I_{l}$ and thereby estimating a constant coefficient ${\bar{α}}_{l}^{(k)}$ associated with the $l$ th interval. Furthermore, the model encompasses a vector of time-constant and time-dependent covariates $A^{(k)}$ , and the associated vector of coefficients $α^{(k)}$ (Blossfeld et al., 2007):⁴

r_{k} (t) = \exp ({\bar{α}}_{l}^{(k)} + A^{(k)} α^{(k)}) i f τ_{l} < t \leq τ_{l + 1}

The intervals of the baseline are split into 2-year time episodes after women’s (re)entry to the labour market: zero to 24 months, 25 to 48 months, and more than 48 months. We estimate the impact of our main independent variables by introducing them step-by-step and additionally inspect the capacity of our moderating factors using interaction analyses. We check the results’ robustness by entering control variables. In the following, we describe these variables’ operationalisation.

Independent variables

Reconciliation legislations

In order to reflect the historical development of family work-policies in terms of entitlement to parental leave, parental allowances and entitlement to external childcare, we group cohorts by the timing of mothers’ last births: 1992 to 1995 (‘most gender-divided’), 1996 to 2000 (‘3-year family phase’), 2001 to 2006 (‘furthering secondary earners’), 2007 to 2012 (‘paradigm change to egalitarianism’), and 2013 to 2015 (‘extended reconciliation’). This reflects the work–family policies that are in effect for women (i.e., not the policies that are state of the art in each specific year).

Reconciliation behaviour

Because SOEP does only sporadically include individual-level gender ideology measures, we use the duration of mothers’ unpaid caregiving after the last child, reflecting their employment (re)entry behaviour, as a proxy for overall reconciliation behaviour. We group these episodes of unpaid caregiving in the following way: below 12 months, 12 to below 24 months, 24 to below 36 months and over 36 months. This variable also makes a variable on the last child’s age redundant, as the duration of unpaid caregiving and the observation time since the (re)entry to part-time work effectively add up to that measure.

Reconciliation institutions and culture

We use yearly full-time childcare rates for infants and kindergartners as well as female part-time employment rates on the state level. The data is publicly available (Destatis, 2019; 2022a; 2022b); we imputed missing values using different strategies (for data sources and imputation methods see Appendix 1(a), 1(b)). Reliable full-time childcare rates are available as of 2006, just before the first public investments in childcare expansion. Prior to that, we assume that their development in West Germany was only marginal before and thus keep the levels of 2006 constant in the years before. In East Germany, we have information for the time of reunification, when it is safe to assume that all childcare places were available as full-time places, and as of 2006. For the meantime, we assume consistency in rates since 1995 for infants and since 1996 for kindergartners (Hank et al., 2001) and use linear extrapolation for the years before. For reunited Berlin, data is inconclusive until 1996, so we render these values missing and include a separate category in the analyses.

Controls

We control for area of living to assess if our regional covariates fully explain West–East differences. We enter the family context into the model, namely the marital status and the number of children. To account for the occupational context, we control for occupational class (EGP) (Erikson and Goldthorpe, 1992), education (CASMIN), current working hours, and working experience. Beyond that, we control demographic aspects like mothers’ age at first birth and migration background. We enter the regional female unemployment rate as a labour market condition.

Results

Overview on (re)entry to employment

Our study on transitions from part-time to full-time work adds a piece to the puzzle of mothers’ comprehensive employment behaviours. To understand the location of this particular piece, we prepend an overview of mothers’ initial employment (re)entries after their last birth. We study cohorts that were subject to work–family policies in terms of entitlement to parental leave, parental allowances and entitlement to external childcare. Across the observed cohorts, the share of SOEP-women who (re)entered part-time employment increased: from 64% for the ‘most gender-divided’ policy cohort (1992–95) to 76% in the ‘paradigm change to egalitarianism’ cohort (2007–12) – at the expense of both full-time (from 23% to 16%) and non-employment (from 13% to 8%). In the most recent policy cohort of ‘extended reconciliation’ (2013–15), the share of part-time (re)entries slightly declined to 72% while full-time (re)entries increased to 19%. This is a first hint that the recent reform may have facilitated full-time employment, at least with regard to direct employment (re)entries. We focus on whether this holds true for women who (re)enter part-time work after their last birth.

The timing of these (re)entries to part-time employment are shown in Figure 1. For the most part, the share of mothers who (re)enter after more than 24 months decreases sharply across policy cohorts. Predominantly, more and more mothers give unpaid care for less than a year before (re)entering part-time employment. After the 2007 ‘paradigm change to egalitarianism’ reform, however, unpaid caregiving for more than 12 and up to 24 months gains relevance – at least among those who (re)enter part-time employment. For the policy cohort of ‘extended reconciliation’ as of 2013, results suggest no considerable additional development compared to the previous policy cohort. Possibly, the 2007 reform has already reached its final utility for part-time (re)entrants. Full-time (re)entrants, in contrast, increasingly give unpaid care for less than 2 years with a majority of them choosing caregiving episodes of up to 1 year (Appendix 2). This suggests that mothers increasingly select into those labour-market oriented women who (re)enter employment sooner into full-time employment, and those who aim to commit more to their family, give unpaid care for a longer episode of time, and (re)enter part-time employment.

Results on the transition from part-time to full-time employment

Following these initial analyses, we now focus on mothers’ employment behaviour subsequent to their (re)entry to part-time work. Within 10 years, one third (36%) of them increase their working hours from part-time to full-time employment. With regard to speed, 25% of (re)entrants transition within 5.4 years. Therein, we find notable differences between mothers from West and East German states: a little less than one third (32%) of mothers in West German states and a little more than half (53%) of those in East German states top up their working hours. Regarding speed, the first 25% of mothers in West German states transition within 7.75 years while, in East German states, the same share transition after only 1.9 years.

Table 1 presents our main results, i.e., the coefficients from multivariable piecewise constant exponential models on mothers’ transition from part-time to full-time employment and, first, how it is influenced by reconciliation legislations and, second, how this effect is moderated by reconciliation-relevant factors such as individual behaviours and macro institutional and cultural aspects. In the baseline, a less negative coefficient reflects a higher tendency of mothers to transition from part-time to full-time employment.⁵ The baseline intervals show that the tendency is highest in the first 2 years after (re)entering the labour market. It decreases sharply towards the following 2 years and continues to decrease, though at a smaller rate, thereafter. The general nature of this pattern does not change upon inserting other variables in the model.

Table 1.

Piecewise constant exponential models on transition from part-time to full-time employment.

	m1	m2	m3	m4	m5	m6
duration since (re)entry to part-time work (baseline)
0 to 24 months	-5.27*	-4.88*	-5.51*	-2.86*	-3.41*	-4.90*
24 to 48 months	-5.52*	-5.16*	-5.77*	-3.01*	-3.62*	-5.10*
more than 48 months	-5.72*	-5.39*	-6.06 *	-3.09*	-3.81*	-5.14*
cohort of family policy by birth of last child
most gender-divided (1992-95)	ref.	ref.	ref.	ref.	ref.	ref.
3-year family phase (1996-2000)	-0.15	-0.22	-0.18	-0.02	-0.14	-0.12
furthering secondary earners (2001-06)	0.13	0.03	-0.05	0.36*	0.10	0.04
paradigm change to egalitarianism (2007-12)	-0.07	-0.22	-0.39*	0.28+	-0.12	-0.11
extended reconciliation (2013-15)	0.12	-0.04	-0.33	0.54*	0.06	0.06
unpaid caregiving after last child
up to 12 months		ref.			ref.	ref.
>12 to 24 months		-0.18			-0.30*	-0.34*
>24 to 36 months		-0.49*			-0.54*	-0.63*
over 36 months		-0.60*			-0.57*	-0.57*
regional full-time childcare rates
infants, 0-<3 years old			0.02+		0.00	0.01
kindergartners, 3-6 years old			0.01		0.01	0.01
regional female part-time employment rate				-0.06*	-0.04*	0.00
area of living
West Germany						ref.
Easst Germany						-0.13
marital status
married						ref.
cohabiting						-0.34*
single						-0.66*
number of children
1						0.15
2						ref.
3 or more						-0.35*
occupational class (EGP)
higher managerial and professional workers (I)						ref.
lower managerial and professional workers (II)						0.04
routine clerical work (IIIa)						-0.08
routine service and sales work (IIIb)						-0.06
small self-employed/farmers (IV)						1.21*
manual workers (VI & VII)						-0.15
educational qualification
no or lower secondary degree						-0.01
middle secondary degree						ref.
upper secondary degree						-0.08
tertiary degree						0.32*
working experience
full-time working experience						0.02
part-time working experience						-0.04*
current working hours
temporally not employed						-1.62
up to 10 hours (marginal)						ref.
>10 to 20 hours						0.82*
>20 to 30 hours						0.95*
age at first birth						-0.05*
migration background
none						ref.
direct						0.23
indirect						0.05
regional female unemployment rate						0.05*

N (observations)	116,668	116,668	116,668	116,668	116,668	116,668
N (cases)	1,990	1,990	1,990	1,990	1,990	1,990
transitions	476	476	476	476	476	476

Note: SOEP v37, own calculations. Part-time employment up to 30 hours per week, full-time employment 31+ hours per week. Significance levels: + p<0.10, * p<0.05. Categories of missing values in EGP (n (obs) = 17,385), marital status (n(obs) = 138) and education (n(obs) = 317) not shown.

Model 1 (m1) shows that, by themselves, reconciliation legislations – i.e., the work–family policies in effect – appear to have no substantial effect on mothers’ tendency to transition from part-time to full-time work. Upon inserting other moderating reconciliation determinants, however, the picture proves more nuanced.

In Model 2 (m2), we insert mothers’ unpaid caregiving after their last child. The effects are in most parts negative and significant, reflecting that longer episode of unpaid caregiving go along with a decreasing tendency to transition to full-time employment (by −39% for >24 to 36 months resp. −45% for over 36 months⁶) – reflecting an overall lower labour-market orientation. Furthermore, while the policy cohort is not significant, the coefficients have decreased more and more by policy cohort, which prompts a closer look. In further analyses we estimated an interaction analysis of work–family policy cohort and mothers’ unpaid caregiving (Appendix 3). The results show that, notably as of the ‘paradigm change to egalitarianism’ cohort of 2007, an episode of unpaid caregiving of 13 to 24 months influences a transition to full-time employment negatively compared to giving unpaid care for up to 12 months. Before the 2007 reform, less pronounced negative but still significant effects could only be observed for mothers who give unpaid care for more than 36 months.

When instead inserting regional full-time childcare rates for infants and kindergartners in Model 3 (m3), the coefficient for the ‘paradigm change to egalitarianism’ cohort 2007–12 is negative, strong and significant (−32%). The coefficient for the ‘extended reconciliation’ cohort of 2013–15 indicates a similar nature, though not significant. This suggests that the reforms since 2007 have influenced the transition from part-time to full-time employment negatively. This, however, was compensated for by the expansion of full-time childcare that happened simultaneously, for which the model indicates a positive effect for infants (of +2% per percentage point). The interaction analysis in Appendix 3 shows, however, that this positive effect, the extra utility of infant full-time childcare expansion, diminishes over time while it increases for full-time childcare for kindergartners – most notably for the ‘furthering secondary earners’ policy cohort (2001–06), prior to the institutional expansion.

In Model 4 (m4), we insert the regional female part-time employment rate. Generally, it has a negative impact on mothers’ transition to full-time employment (by −6% per percentage point). As it increased along with the effects of the policy cohorts, it suppressed a positive potential impact of the policy cohorts as of 2001 (of +43% in the ‘furthering secondary earners’ cohort 2001–06, +32% in the ‘paradigm change to egalitarianism’ cohort 2007–12, and +72% in the ‘extended reconciliation’ cohort 2013–15). The interaction effect in Appendix 3 shows that the female part-time employment rate’s transition-reducing impact increases even more across policy cohorts.

The separate models show that the moderating variables work in opposite directions with regard to their interplay with the policy cohorts. Thus, Model 5 (m5) tests their impact simultaneously. Indeed, the three moderators balance each other out: the increased female part-time employment rate suppresses a positive policy effect to a similar extent as full-time childcare rates and unpaid caregiving suppress a negative policy effect. The already complex effect of full-time childcare for infants does not prove resistant to the augmented model.

In Model 6 (m6), we check if these findings are subject to changes when controlling for the ever-underlying context of East–West differences in Germany as well as familial, occupational, socio-demographic and labour market factors. The results suggest that the findings for policy cohorts are robust to the insertion of controls. East–West differences are fully reflected, represented by the previously inserted moderating covariates, both in the full and a separate model without other controls (analyses not shown). The regional female unemployment rate explains the direct effect of regional female part-time employment rates.

Discussion

This article investigated how mothers’ part-time employment behaviour is influenced by reconciliation-fostering legislations in terms of entitlement to parental leave, parental allowances and entitlement to external childcare, and how this influence depends on reconciliation-relevant individual behaviours as well as regional institutional and cultural factors. Germany is an important case study for this topic because the part-time employment rate is relatively high in European comparison.

We found that the impact of reconciliation legislations, i.e., work–family policies, highly depends on the moderation by other factors. After 2007, the legislative paradigm redirected reconciliation arrangements from several-year episodes of maternal unpaid caregiving to shorter leaves. As of that point, the impact of legislation appears to coincide with several concurrent but contradicting developments that influence mothers’ transitioning from part-time to full-time work. This association is too complex to support our u-shaped hypothesis H1: in our sample, we did not find significant evidence that the advancement of reconciliation-friendly legislations influences mothers’ transition from part-time to full-time employment per se, but rather moderated by other aspects.

First, reforms as of the ‘paradigm change to egalitarianism’ of 2007 suggest an ideal of 1-year caregiving episodes – a relatively short leave. Apparently, this incentive was predominantly embraced by more employment-oriented mothers who are also more likely to seek to top up their working hours later on, using their part-time employment as a ‘stepping stone’ to an occupationally more meaningful full-time employment. Specifically, as of 2007, the timing of (re)entering within a year is more meaningful for the long-term employment tracks than it was before. In contrast, giving unpaid care for any longer time than a year is more likely to be associated with a ‘mommy track’ with a considerably lower tendency – or chance – to transition from part-time to full-time employment. This constriction is crucial as ‘standard’ tracks for mothers often face labour market penalties (Stier et al., 2001), and an even earlier start of the ‘mommy track’ could lead to even earlier penalties, reinforcing the path to an occupational dead end. In sum, we found support for our hypothesis (H2): those mothers translate reconciliation-friendly policies into a transition from part-time to full-time employment who (re)enter part-time employment sooner. As a result, however, the findings suggest that the reconciliation-friendly policies as of 2007 appear to have added to a more differentiated polarization of mothers’ part-time employment paths into ‘mommy tracks’ and ‘stepping stones’.

Second, as of 2005, reconciliation institutions were expanded, i.e., full-time external childcare that might facilitate full-time work. Before that point, the reforms of the ‘furthering secondary earners’ cohort of 2001 were not supported by expanding childcare institutions. The ‘paradigm change to egalitarianism’ reform of 2007 and following legislations, in contrast, were accompanied by ever-growing full-time childcare rates. Overall, these reconciliation institutions appear to enable full-time employment-oriented mothers to utilise reconciliation-friendly legislations. The extra utility of infant full-time childcare after 2007, however, seems limited. In sum, the picture is complex, but supports our hypothesis (H3): a higher availability of full-time childcare enables mothers to translate reconciliation-friendly policies into a transition to full-time employment.

Third, the reconciliation-friendly legislations were accompanied by an increasingly salient part-time culture, i.e., increasing rates of female part-time employment. This culture reduced mothers’ transition rates from part-time to full-time employment and hampered the reconciliation-friendly legislation effect. This inhibiting influence of part-time employment rates increased over time, not only after the watershed reform of 2007, but already after the ‘furthering secondary earners’ reforms of 2001, when legislations already heralded a paradigm change in parental leaves and ensured equal treatment to part-time and full-time employees. Thus, the findings support our hypothesis (H4): a more salient part-time culture impedes mothers at translating reconciliation-friendly policies into increasing their working hours from part-time to full-time employment.

These mechanisms can only be separated empirically, however. Their interplay is of particular interest: as mothers (re)enter the labour market more often and earlier, (re)entry to full-time employment is neither wanted nor adequately made possible. The thus boosted part-time culture, in turn, reinforces the continuance in part-time work, i.e., a ‘mommy track’. Furthermore, a more salient part-time culture reduces the marginal utility of full-time external childcare: as part-time culture has steadily increased across time, it lowered the need for full-time external childcare – especially in East Germany, where the full-time childcare rate is relatively high while the female part-time employment rate has increased sharply. In light of the increased part-time culture in recent policy cohorts, the high full-time childcare rate has enabled more of those mothers to work full-time who were still willing to do so. Interestingly, these moderators, and part-time culture in particular, fully account for East–West differences, despite the long-standing institutional and cultural discrepancies. These results are essentially robust to effects of familial, occupational and socio-demographic factors. We find that adverse labour market conditions like high unemployment are of greater relevance than the surrounding part-time culture.

The findings are, as usual, subject to some limitations. First, the applied method unfortunately does not allow for causal analyses or multilevel analyses; our policy conclusions are derived from successiveness and associations. Second, for lack of data, we had to work with several proxies and some strong assumptions, particularly with regard to mothers’ labour market orientation and longitudinal childcare rates. While we developed our bridge hypotheses most carefully, further research or more detailed datasets might assess our arguments more profoundly, e.g., by incorporating attitudes and intentions. Third, in the centre of our analyses were reconciliation legislations as well as behaviours, institutions, and cultures. Familial, occupational, socio-demographic and labour market determinants were mere controls, though they exert interesting impact on mothers’ transition from part-time to full-time employment themselves. Further research ought to focus on these determinants in more detail.

Nonetheless, the results have meaningful implications for understanding mothers’ transitions from part-time to full-time employment. Overall, the impact of reconciliation legislations, i.e., work–family policies, by themselves is difficult to assess. This is because the policies went hand in hand with simultaneous, interdependent developments, which each played diverse roles in influencing mothers’ employment behaviour. As work–family policies did not address maternal full-time employment specifically, but rather mothers’ general labour market orientation, they launched several mechanisms with adverse effects. Generally, it appears that these mechanisms contributed to an increased polarization of mothers’ caregiving and employment behaviour. The incentives and opportunities to commit to the labour market strongly resonated in some mothers who thus could seize part-time employment as a ‘stepping stone’ to full-time employment. Less decisive mothers, in contrast, might find themselves on a ‘mommy track’ that became even more difficult to leave. This interplay highlights the existence of a ‘welfare state paradox’, according to which the very same progressive family legislations that uphold one dimension of gender equality may diminish another one. At present, more than 50% of part-time employment arrangements are of long-lasting nature. Thus, if a society decides to facilitate full-time employment in mothers against existing paradigms, it may need more explicit policy incentives and a deep understanding of the mechanisms these policies activate. For policy makers this means that they ought to decide how, if at all, they want to meet their policy goal of gender equality on the labour market. If they want to encourage women to transition from part-time to full-time employment of more than 30 hours a week, it might need explicit incentives and facilitations like financial premiums to full-time employment and structural benefits like priority access to childcare. In contrast, if they want to upvalue part-time employment as a long-term solution for women, they might have to incentivise and facilitate it for men as well to promote gender equality.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - Is part-time employment a temporary ‘stepping stone’ or a lasting ‘mommy track’? Legislation and mothers’ transition to full-time employment in Germany

Supplemental Material for Is part-time employment a temporary ‘stepping stone’ or a lasting ‘mommy track’? Legislation and mothers’ transition to full-time employment in Germany by Nadja Milewski and Uta Brehm in Journal of European Social Policy

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We thank Linda Lux in particular as well as Inga Laß and anonymous reviewers for their valuable contributions to earlier versions of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Uta Brehm

Nadja Milewski

Notes

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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