Fathers’ and mothers’ joint longitudinal employment patterns around first birth in Germany, 1990-2020

This paper analyzes joint employment trajectories of first-time parents in Germany from one year before to six years after the birth of their first child. Using monthly employment data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, I apply group-based multi-trajectory modeling to identify typical combinations of mothers’ and fathers’ full- and part-time employment over time (Nagin et al., 2016). I find eight distinct multi-trajectory groups. Five reflect traditional specialization, in which mothers partially or fully reduce their paid work for an extended period following childbirth, while fathers remain consistently employed full-time or increase their likelihood of full-time employment. The remaining three reflect less gendered patterns, including dual full-time, female full-time, and dual part-time groups. I examine how couples’ baseline characteristics are associated with multi-trajectory membership. Findings indicate that couples are more likely to specialize when only he holds tertiary education, whereas non-traditional patterns are more likely when only she or both partners are highly educated. The patterns differ across two periods marked by distinct policy contexts and between couples with mothers of East and West German background, even after 2007. The study contributes to our understanding how institutions, absolute and relative resources shape joint parental employment trajectories from a dynamic dyadic perspective.