ABSTRACT
Women will choose to remain working at home or to enter market work depending on the net benefits in a broad sense from choosing one of the alternatives. The British low employment rates before and after birth are also reflected in the small proportion of ‘ee’ mothers in Great Britain. Joshi et al. suggest that polarisation has been occurring between low and highly educated women. Highly educated women who delayed their first birth, built up work experience before birth and were able to use the new maternity legislation and pay for child care. Swedish women go through the childbearing process with only a small drop in earnings. Most studies of women’s labour supply include variables on family composition, number of children and children’s age. The proportion of wife’s earnings in couples joint earnings for the subgroup of women who worked when their child was two years old, does not differ very much between Germany and Sweden.
