Day-care availability, maternal employment and satisfaction of parents: Evidence from cultural and policy variations in Germany

This study investigates how the availability and expansion of childcare services for children aged under 3 years relate to the subjective wellbeing of German mothers and fathers. It extends previous studies by examining in more detail the relationship between day-care availability and use, maternal employment and parental subjective wellbeing during early childhood in a country with expanding childcare services and varying work-care cultures. The empirical analysis links annual day-care attendance rates at the county-level to individual-level data of the Socio-Economic Panel Study for 2007-2012 and the Families in Germany' Study for 2010-2012. We apply fixed-effects panel models to samples of 2002 couples and 376 lone mothers. We find some evidence of a positive effect of the day-care expansion only on satisfaction with family life for lone mothers and for full-time employed partnered mothers. Transitions to full-time employment are associated with reductions in subjective wellbeing irrespective of local day-care availability among partnered mothers in West Germany but not in East Germany. These results suggest that varying work-care cultures between East and West Germany are more important moderators of the relationship between maternal employment and satisfaction than short-term regional expansions of childcare services.