Public policies and the employment of mothers: A cross-national study

Objective. This research analyzes the effect of public child care and parental leave policy on the employment patterns of mothers with young children. Methods. The research design uses measurable variation in both policy and maternal employment patterns across fourteen industrialized countries. The independent variable is national policy performance, as captured in two composite indexes of policy indicators. The dependent variable is the magnitude of each country's "child penalty": the regression-adjusted estimate of the decrease in mothers' employment probability given the presence of young children at home. Each country's child penalty is estimated using microdata from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). Results. The results demonstrate a strong association between policy configurations and the employment patterns of mothers. Child penalties are greatest in those countries with the least-developed public policies that are aimed at supporting the employment of mothers with young children. Conclusions. These findings suggest that government policies have influenced the employment decisions of married women with children, with particularly important consequences for the continuity of labor force attachments. The results have implications for further research and for current public policy debates.