Outsourcing of Child Care and Household Labor and Its Effect on Transition to Second Birth

Liat Raz-Yurovich, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

In this study, we analyze how the ability to outsource household labor and child care duties after the first birth affects women’s transition to second birth. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel, we follow women who let birth for the first time in 1999-2006. Discrete-time event history models show a strong positive effect of employing a domestic help, but this might be driven by short spacing between the two births. Moreover, we find a positive effect of the total number of hours of help with child care the woman receive in the second year, and a negative effect if the mother has no sources of help in this year. We find no significant effect of the availability of paid child care or of the time spend in it, but our results show that whether or not the spouse/partner shares responsibilities with child care is a crucial determinant of second birth.