Esta tesis evalúa el papel de las características no deseadas del trabajo - llamadas disamenities - en el contexto del balance entre trabajo y familia. Particularmente, se plantean las siguientes preguntas: ¿es el descenso en el salario de las mujeres luego del nacimiento del primer hijo - llamado child penalty - acompañado por una reducción simultánea en las disamenities?; ¿cuánto salario están dispuestas las madres a sacrificar para reducir las disamenities?; ¿las disamenities propias del trabajo de las madres tienen algún efecto sobre el desarrollo cognitivo de sus hijos? En el capitulo I se describe empíricamente como las características del trabajo de las madres cambian luego del nacimiento del primer hijo y se testea la hipótesis de que si el child penalty se puede explicar como un diferencial salarial compensatorio. En el capitulo II se estima la disposición marginal a pagar de las madres para reducir las disamenities. La estrategia de identificación está basada en la baja por maternidad, la cual constituye un contexto que permite modelar más cabalmente la decisión sobre la participación laboral; y por consiguiente, mejora la metodología existente para estimar la disposición marginal a pagar por parte de las madres. Finalmente, en el capitulo III se investiga el impacto de las disamenities del trabajo de las madres sobre el desarrollo infantil. / This dissertation evaluates the role of job disamenities - job characteristics disliked by workers - in the context of work-family balance. In particular, the following questions are raised. Is the decrease in mothers' wages around first childbirth - the so-called child penalty - accompanied by a simultaneous reduction in job disamenities? How much wage are mothers willing to sacrifice in order to reduce job disamenities? Do disamenities involved in mothers' occupations go on to affect parenting behaviour and as a result harm children's cognitive development? Chapter I provides empirical evidence for changes in maternal working conditions around first childbirth and tests the hypothesis if the child penalty can be explained by a compensating wage differential? Chapter II estimates mothers' marginal willingness to pay to reduce job disamenities. The identification strategy relies on the framework of maternal leave, a setting which allows us to model mothers' decision to join the labor force accurately and hence to improve on the existing methodology to estimate the marginal willingness to pay. Chapter III investigates how disamenities involved in mothers' occupation go on to affect children's cognitive outcomes.

Prevailing low fertility rates in several European states, such as Germany, have been studied widely in recent years. Findings include discrepancies between fertility preference and actual family size as well as between fertility intentions and fertility behavior; an ‘unmet need’ for children found on the individual and the societal level. Fertility preference is specified as the individual ideal number of children, and fertility intentions as the long- or short-term plans to have a child. Apart from investigating the rates of realization, these measures have been understudied. The objective of this study is to illuminate a new angle of low fertility rates in Germany by reviewing fertility measures previously considered to be stable predictors of fertility behavior. The aim is to investigate the stability of fertility preferences and of positive short-term fertility intentions of Germans in their reproductive age. According to the Theory of Planned Behavior and the life-course perspective, attitudes and experiences can influence fertility preferences and short-term fertility intentions. In this study, the suspected connection between unstable preferences and intentions and certain attitudes towards and experiences with the career, working life, and childcare situation is examined. These processes are expected to differ between men and women, and between childless individuals, parents with one child and parents with more than one child. Using data from seven survey waves of the German family panel pairfam, fixed-effects and random-effects regression models are run separately for women and men and for those of different parities. The results suggest that those with high career importance and those who expect or perceive a negative effect of children on the career are more likely to have unstable positive intentions. Although fertility preferences are shown to be somewhat unstable, no relevant relationships can be found. The differences between the findings on men and women regarding relevant determinants and direction of the relationships are unexpectedly small. Childless individuals are as likely to hold unstable preferences and intentions as parents.