The Impact of Full-Day Kindergarten on Maternal Labour Supply (original) (raw)
Related papers
From Homemakers to Breadwinners? How Mandatory Kindergarten Affects Maternal Labour Market Outcomes
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2022
We analyse the effect of mandatory kindergarten attendance for four-year-old children on maternal labour supply in Switzerland by using two quasi-experiments. Firstly, we investigate a large administrative dataset and apply a non-parametric regression discontinuity design to evaluate the effect of the reform at the birthday cutoff for entering the kindergarten in the same versus in the following year. Secondly, we complement this analysis by exploiting spatial variation and staggered treatment implementation of the reform across cantons (administrative units in Switzerland) in a difference-indifferences approach based on a Swiss household survey. All in all, the results suggest that if anything, mandatory kindergarten increases the labour force attachment of mothers very moderately. The effects are driven by mothers earning less than the median annual work income and by older rather than younger mothers.
Easing the Constraints of Motherhood: The Effects of All‐Day Schools on Mothers' Labor Supply
Economic Inquiry, 2018
Low rates of female labor force participation (LFP) have been linked to the absence of childcare policies. This article examines the degree to which extending the school day by 3.5 hours in elementary schools, a large implicit childcare subsidy, affects LFP, the number of weekly hours worked, and the monthly earnings of females with elementaryschool-age children. To do so, we exploit within-individual variation in access to full-time schools and a rotating panel of households that contains 12 years of individual-level data on labor outcomes and sociodemographic characteristics. Results from long-difference models show that extending the school day increases mothers' labor supply, increasing LFP by 5.5 percentage points and the number of weekly hours worked by 1.8. Moreover, these increases are accompanied by a raise in monthly earnings. (JEL I25, J13, J22)
Labour Economics, 2009
This paper shows that a temporary incentive to join the labor market or to work more can also produce substantial life-cycle labor supply effects. On September 1997, a new childcare policy was initiated by the provincial government of Québec, the second most populous province in Canada. Licensed and regulated providers of childcare services began offering day care spaces at the subsidized fee of $5 per day per child for children aged 4. In successive years, the government reduced the age requirement, created new childcare facilities and spaces, and paid for the additional costs entailed by this low-fee policy. No such important policy changes for preschool (including kindergarten) children were enacted in the nine other Canadian provinces over the years 1997 to 2004. Using annual data drawn from Statistics Canada's Survey on Labour and Income Dynamic and a difference-in-differences quasi-experimental methodology, the paper estimates the dynamic labor supply effects of the program. The results demonstrate that the policy had long-term labor supply effects on mothers who benefited from the program when their child was less than 6. A striking feature of the results is that they are driven by changes in the labor supply of less educated mothers.
Quebec’s universal childcare policy : immigrant women’s labour supply and childcare usage
2016
The 1997 Quebec childcare policy is the first and only universal childcare program to be introduced in Canada. By using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth from Statistics Canada, this paper analyzes the effects of this policy on immigrant women’s labour supply and their childcare usage over the course of 8 different cycles: 1994-1995, 1996-1997, 1998-1999, 2000-2001, 2002-2003, 2004-20005, 2006-2007 and 2008-2009. A double difference-in-difference method is used to estimate the effects. The results show an increase in immigrant women’s labour force participation, affecting the lower educated mothers more than the higher educated ones. In the case of childcare usage, whilst the results show an overall increase in usage, the increase is largely for informal childcare. This research adds to the existing literature, as it is the first to analyze the effects of the policy on immigrants in particular; the assumption that immigrants behave in the same way as n...
Universal Child Care, Maternal Labor Supply, and Family Well‐Being
Journal of Political Economy, 2008
The growing labor force participation of women with small children in both the U.S. and Canada has led to calls for increased public financing for childcare. The optimality of public financing depends on a host of factors, such as the "crowd-out" of existing childcare arrangements, the impact on female labor supply, and the effects on child well-being. The introduction of universal, highlysubsidized childcare in Quebec in the late 1990s provides an opportunity to address these issues. We carefully analyze the impacts of Quebec's "$5 per day childcare" program on childcare utilization, labor supply, and child (and parent) outcomes in two parent families. We find strong evidence of a shift into new childcare use, although approximately one third of the newly reported use appears to come from women who previously worked and had informal arrangements. The labor supply impact is highly significant, and our measured elasticity of 0.236 is slightly smaller than previous credible estimates. Finally, we uncover striking evidence that children are worse off in a variety of behavioral and health dimensions, ranging from aggression to motor-social skills to illness. Our analysis also suggests that the new childcare program led to more hostile, less consistent parenting, worse parental health, and lower-quality parental relationships.
Samuel Berlinski, Sebastian Galiani, The effect of a large expansion of pre-primary school facilities on preschool attendance and maternal employment, Labour Economics, Volume 14, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 665-680, ISSN 0927-5371, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2007.01.003., 2007
We provide evidence on the impact of a large construction of pre-primary school facilities in Argentina. We estimate the causal impact of the program on pre-primary school attendance and maternal labor supply. Identification relies on a differences-indifferences strategy where we combine differences across regions in the number of facilities built with differences in exposure across cohorts induced by the timing of the program. We find a sizeable impact of the program on pre-primary school participation among children aged between 3 and 5. In fact, we cannot reject the null hypothesis of a full take-up of newly constructed places. In addition, we find that the childcare subsidy induced by the program increases maternal employment and that this effect is in line with the one previously found for the US.
Is full better than half? Examining the longitudinal effects of full-day kindergarten attendance
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2006
Kindergarten policy varies widely both across and within states. Over the past decade, a number of states have instituted a full-day kindergarten requirement and a number of others are considering it as a way of increasing educational achievement. Many parents also support fullday kindergarten as a source of child care. This paper uses the Early Child Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 to evaluate the efficacy of this policy. In ordinary least squares, probit, county fixed effects, and instrumental variables models, we find that there are initial benefits for students and the mothers of students that attend full-day kindergarten, but that these differences largely evaporate by third grade. Contrary to claims by some advocates, attending full-day kindergarten is found to have no additional benefit for students in families with income below the poverty threshold.
Childcare availability and maternal labor supply in a setting of high potential impact
Empirical Economics, 2018
We estimate the effect of subsidized childcare availability on Hungarian mothers' labor supply, using a discontinuity in kindergarten eligibility at age 3 of children. The effect is identified in a setting where policy intervention has a high potential impact, since maternal labor supply is very low under age 3 of children, but high for mothers with older children. We find that access to subsidized childcare increases maternal labor supply by 11.7 percentage points or 24%, an impact that is higher than what has been found in previous quasi-experimental studies from most other countries. However, the potential effectiveness of future childcare expansion under age 3 may be constrained by further institutional factors, such as very long parental leave, tradi