Extended Parental Leave in the GDR: Children Show Higher Life Satisfaction in the Long Run

Previous studies on parental leave reforms come to different conclusions as to what extent parental leave influences child development. Our study is based on a parental leave reform in the former GDR from 1986. In the GDR, there was no specific selec-tion of women into the labor market or insufficient or heterogeneous childcare pro-vision. In taking this approach, we avoid methodological problems that other stud-ies on parental leave reforms face. We find significant and robust positive effects on the life satisfaction of now-adult children.