The impact of cash-benefit reform on parents' labour force participation

"This paper evaluates the impact of a recent Norwegian family-policy reform. The reform provides benefits of up to NOK 3,000 (approximately EURO 400) per month to families with one- to three-year-old children, who do not utilize state-subsidized day-care centres. We investigate the reforms effect on parents labour force participation. We find that, on average, the reform reduced womens labour force participation and increased the specialization of work between couples. We find that the effect of the reform depends on womens schooling. Specifically, the labour force participation of highly educated mothers fell by more than that of mothers with less education." Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch-quantitativ; empirisch. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1998 bis 1999. (author's abstract, IAB-Doku).