Current micro-level studies on the effect of formal child care on fertility behavior cannot establish an indisputable positive link. Especially in Germany’s policy context however, such a link is crucial to en-hance the legitimacy of the more recent but long overdue policy turnaround towards the dual-earner model. The results of this paper illustrate the reliance of policy success on an alignment of preferences presupposed by the implemented policy and preferences prevalent within the exposed population. Preferences central to driving policy success are distinguished by women’s receptiveness to such policy in terms of policy applicability and acceptability. The approach is empirically tested by means of Event-History analysis of German women’s first-birth transition based on the German Pairfam panel data set. The results indicate that if formal child care options are provided to 1) women who desire to reconcile family and career, or are provided to 2) women who are open to give their child into formal care, the provision of child care is a significant factor in stimulating women’s transition to first birth. On the contrary, women with career- or family-foci and women averse to formal care are not stimulated by the provision of formal care options. From the results I conclude that a continued expansion of formal child care will aid in overcoming lowest-low fertility by providing child care to those who are receptive to it and promoting a timelier motherhood image to women who are still averse to it.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-152788 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Deiters, Maximilian |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Sociologiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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