Who should scale back? Experimental evidence on employer support for part-time employment and working hours norms for couples with young children

Abstract

This experimental study investigates how hypothetical employer support for part-time work shapes working hours norms for mothers and fathers with young children in Germany. It extends previous studies by focusing on the couple context, for instance by exploring interdependencies with each partner’s earnings potential. The analysis is framed using capability-based explanations combined with a perspective of gender as a social structure. A factorial survey experiment was implemented within the German pairfam panel. OLS and multinomial logistic regressions with cluster-robust standard errors were conducted with 5,565 respondents. Hypothetical employer support similarly increases respondents’ recommendations to reduce working hours for mothers and fathers and supports dual part-time arrangements. In couples who face opposing incentives in terms of promotion prospects and employer support for part- time work, prevailing gender norms seem to reinforce the traditionalizing constraints and attenuate the de-traditionalizing influence. Respondents with more egalitarian gender beliefs respond more strongly to paternal employer support.

Keywords: employer support, gender norms, Germany, parental employment, part-time work, survey experiment