School entry, afternoon care, and mothers' labour supply

Artikel

The availability of childcare is a crucial factor for mothers' labour force participation. While most of the literature examines childcare for preschool children, we specifically focus on primary school-aged children, estimating the effect of formal afternoon care on maternal labour supply. To do so, we use a novel matching technique, entropy balancing, and draw on the rich and longitudinal data of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We show that children's afternoon care increases mothers' employment rates and their working hours. To confirm the robustness of our results, we conduct a series of sensitivity analyses and apply a newly proposed method to assess possible bias from omitted variables. Our findings highlight how childcare availability shapes maternal employment patterns well after school entry.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: Empirical Economics ; Volume: 57 ; Year: 2019 ; Issue: 3 ; Pages: 769-803 ; Berlin: Springer

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth ; Labor Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs ; Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
• Subject: Afternoon care ; Maternal labour supply ; All-day schools ; Entropy balancing

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Gambaro, Ludovica ; Marcus, Jan ; Peter, Frauke
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Springer ; ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
• (where): Berlin
• (when): 2019

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.1007/s00181-018-1462-3
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/214192
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET