No. 1000: Family-Friendly Workplace Policies
Julián Costas-Fernández School of Economics, University of Surrey Sebastian Findeisen University of Konstanz, Department of Economics Anna Raute School of Economics and Finance, Queen Mary University of London, CESifo, CEPR and RFBerlin Uta Schönberg HKU Business School, The University of Hong Kong; Institute for Em-ployment Research (IAB), RFBerlin, CEPR
May 1, 2026
Abstract
his paper examines firms’ incentives to provide workplace amenities, focusing on employer-provided childcare, and the implications for gender inequality. Using rich matched employer–employee data linked to a comprehensive firm survey in Germany, we document substantial and persistent effects of employer-provided childcare on mothers’ labor market trajectories. Firms that offer childcare experience higher reten-tion rates and notably shorter career interruptions among first-time mothers, especially those with high pre-birth wages, resulting in meaningful reductions in child penal-ties of 4.7 percentage points for high-wage mothers. The adoption of firm-provided childcare is also associated with stronger employment growth — particularly among mothers and female talent in high-wage occupations — without systematic adverse wage effects for women or mothers. Our findings align with models of imperfect competition, indicating that firms with greater monopsony power have stronger incentives to provide valuable workplace amenities. While firm-provided childcare plays a critical role in reducing gender gaps within firms, our findings also show that access to these benefits is uneven, widening disparities among women and mothers across firms.
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Keywords: gender gaps; childcare; workplace amenities; child penalty; monopsony