Transition to Parenthood and Dynamics in Job-related Training Participation: On the gender-specific relationship between family formation and job-related further training participation in Germany and the UK

This project focuses on the relationship between family formation processes and participation in job-related non-formal training in Germany and the UK. Even today in times of increasing labor market participation of women, motherhood still has disruptive effects on female careers. Regular participation might be an important tool to stabilize labor market trajectories of mothers and to attenuate motherhood penalties. However, childcare and other family responsibilities are perceived as major barriers to job-related training participation, especially for women. As a consequence, differences in the relationship between family formation and training participation might additionally foster gender inequalities in the labor market.

Labor market systems and skill formation regimes differ between Germany and the UK. The same applies to gender culture and family policies. Thus, by following a life course perspective and implementing different longitudinal data analysis methods, gender- and country-specific participation dynamics will be analyzed using NEPS (Germany) and the UKHLS (UK).

In the first part of my dissertation, I will explore the interrelatedness between family formation processes and labor market careers by implementing multichannel sequence analysis approaches with cluster analysis to identify the most typical patterns between both spheres.

In the second part of my dissertation, I turn to the effect of childbirth on training participation. Using two-way fixed effects models in an event study specification I analyze the time path of potential family formation effects and explore the role of relevant mechanisms.

The accumulation of training participation will be the main focus of the third part. I will explore if training participation begets training participation and if those processes of strict cumulative advantage differ between parents and childless workers. I will implement dynamic random effects probit models.