The Effect of Childbearing on Job Satisfaction Scores of German Women

Elena Mariani, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

In this article I explore the role of childbearing in explaining job satisfaction of women in West Germany, with a focus on investigating the heterogeneity of the effect among women who experience different types of labor market trajectories after childbearing. I use a sample of women from the German Socio Economic Panel (SOEP), 1984-2012 and first difference equations. I find that there is a lot of heterogeneity in the effect of childbearing on job satisfaction. In particular, women who quit the labor market after childbearing experience the strongest increase in job satisfaction after they return to work. On the other hand, maternity leave is associated with little variations in job satisfaction in West Germany. Women who only take a short maternity break (less than 12 months) or not at all experience a decrease in job satisfaction.