While education and labour force participation of women have been increased, there is still a substantial gender gap in labour market opportunities. This gives rise to the question of what factors lead employers to promote work–family balance and gender equality. We address this question by examining the influence of works councils on the gender policies of establishments in Germany. Using data of the IAB Establishment Panel, we find that the incidence of a works council is on average associated with an increased likelihood that an establishment provides family-friendly practices and promotes equal opportunities of men and women. This finding also holds in a recursive multivariate probit model that accounts for potential endogeneity of works council incidence. However, our estimates also show that the influence of works councils is heterogeneous. Performing separate estimate by collective bargaining status, we find a significant influence of works councils only for establishments covered industry-level collective bargaining agreements, but not for establishments covered by firm-level agreements or establishments not covered by collective bargaining.

中文翻译：

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德国的工作委员会和组织性别政策

虽然妇女的教育和劳动力参与率有所提高，但劳动力市场机会方面仍然存在巨大的性别差距。这就引出了一个问题，即是什么因素导致雇主促进工作——家庭平衡和性别平等。我们通过检查劳资委员会对德国企业性别政策的影响来解决这个问题。使用 IAB 企业小组的数据，我们发现工作委员会的发生率平均与企业提供家庭友好做法和促进男女机会均等的可能性增加有关。这一发现也适用于解释工作委员会发生率潜在内生性的递归多元概率模型。然而，我们的估计也表明劳资委员会的影响是异质的。