Part-time provisions in parental allowance schemes and couples’ division of market work: incentives and information provision

Last registered on November 19, 2025

Pre-Trial

General Information

Title

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0017256

Initial registration date

November 17, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

November 19, 2025, 2:42 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

Germany

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Andreas Knabe

Affiliation

Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2025-11-01

End date

2026-12-31

Keywords

Behavior, Gender, Labor

Additional Keywords

parental leave, family policy

JEL code(s)

D13, J13, J22

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

In this project, we examine whether the introduction of ElterngeldPlus—an additional parental allowance option introduced for births after 1 July 2015 that removes disincentives to part-time work while receiving Elterngeld—encourages a more equal division of paid work and childcare between partners through simultaneous part-time employment. We also assess the role of information provision: in particular, whether limited transparency about financial incentives helps explain the relatively low uptake of ElterngeldPlus for supporting parallel part-time work arrangements.
To address these questions, we conduct a 2×2 randomized survey experiment with a representative sample of about 2,000 adults aged 20–50 in Germany. The experiment evaluates how (1) the introduction of the ElterngeldPlus scheme and (2) the presentation of information on its financial implications shape couples’ preferred division of paid work after the birth of their first child.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Knabe, Andreas. 2025. "Part-time provisions in parental allowance schemes and couples’ division of market work: incentives and information provision." AEA RCT Registry. November 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17256-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The intervention is delivered in a randomized online survey experiment. Respondents are randomly assigned to one of four conditions varying (i) the parental allowance scheme shown (Basiselterngeld vs. ElterngeldPlus) and (ii) the level of information provided (Case 1: verbal rules and tables containing information on work hours and labor income, but not the precise values of the parental allowance vs. Case 2: verbal rules and tables containing information on work hours and incomes including the parental allowance). After receiving the assigned information, participants make choices over work-hour allocations in a post-birth scenario.

Intervention Start Date

2025-11-18

Intervention End Date

2025-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The main outcome captures respondents’ preferred division of paid work within the couple during the first 14 months after childbirth.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

The participants can pick between five archetypical arrangements of distributing 40h of total market work between themselves and their partner. The options are:
1. The woman stays fully home the first 12 months, the man the last 2.
2. The woman stays fully home the first 2 months, the man the last 12.
3. The woman stays fully home the first 7 months, the man the last 7 months.
4. The woman stays fully home for the first 8 months, then both partners work part-time simultaneously for 6 months.
5. The woman stays fully home for the first 2 months, then both partners work part-time simultaneously for 12 months.
These options are presented verbally in terms of “you” and “your partner”, thus, men and women receive separate questionnaires. Alongside the verbal description the participants receive tables telling them the weekly work hours for each partner in the respective month.
The main focus of the study is on how often the part-time options (here 4 and 5, though they are unnumbered and randomized for participants) are chosen in comparison to the options that do not involve part-time employment.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

We conduct a 2×2 between-subjects online survey experiment with 2,000 adults aged 20–50 in Germany. The experiment examines how (i) parental allowance rules (Basiselterngeld vs. ElterngeldPlus) and (ii) information provision (Case 1: verbal rules and tables containing information on work hours and labor income, but not the precise values of the parental allowance vs. Case 2: verbal rules and tables containing information on work hours and incomes including the parental allowance) affect individuals’ preferred division of paid work within couples after the birth of a first child.
All respondents receive a vignette in which their first child has just been born. They must allocate a fixed total of 40 weekly work hours between themselves and their partner for the first 14 months after birth. This setup isolates preferences over the distribution of market work from other considerations, such as regarding the total hours supplied. Respondents make choices in three income scenarios that vary in partners’ pre-birth relative earnings. For each scenario, they choose among five predefined work arrangements (specialization, sequential leave, simultaneous part-time, etc.). Net income is assumed to halve when hours halve.
The respondents are randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups, which differ in the rules for the parental allowance scheme and presentation of information (see above).
Because the research question concerns the gendered divisions of labor, all scenarios describe a heterosexual couple. Respondents are assigned the role (woman or man) consistent with their self-reported gender. Men and women are given the same potential arrangements in terms of how labor is divided between the mother and the father (see primary outcome section), but the different arrangements themselves are not fully symmetrical. This is done because feasible arrangements are restricted by, e.g., maternity protection rules, which imply that women cannot work immediately postpartum, and to prevent choice overload.
Randomization occurs at the individual level, with quotas ensuring roughly equal numbers of male and female respondents. Analyses will be conducted separately by respondent gender and pooled where appropriate.
(For more details, see the pre-analysis plan.)

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

computer

Randomization Unit

individual

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

2000 respondents

Sample size: planned number of observations

2000 respondents

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

500 respondents per treatment arm (2x2 design)

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name

IRB Approval Date

IRB Approval Number

Analysis Plan