Grandchild Care and Female Labor Supply: Evidence from a Universal Child Care Program in China
Speaker: Qing Wang (PHBS)
Date: Wednesday, May 16
Time: 12-1 pm
Venue: Room 1300
Abstract:
The employment supportive effects on mothers of the universal and subsidized child care policy have generated extensive research interests in previous literature. Elderly women or grandmothers are highly involved in grandchild care. However, little is known about how their employment responds to a child care policy. This paper fills the gap by evaluating the effects of strengthening accessibility to formal child care facilities on elderly women's labor supply. Using the first universal child care program in China, we develop a difference-in-differences strategy to identify the causal effects. Exploiting the variation in the expansion of child care across provinces and years, we find that the child care program has a strong and robust positive effect on promoting labor force participation of females between 40 and 60 years old with preschool grandchildren. A further investigation into the hours worked per week indicates that the policy effect is mostly at the extensive margins, rather at the intensive margins. The effect is more significant for wage earners with higher educational attainment and from higher-income families.
Speaker’s website:
http://english.phbs.pku.edu.cn/content-627-61-1.html
Speaker: Qing Wang (PHBS)
Date: Wednesday, May 16
Time: 12-1 pm
Venue: Room 1300
Abstract:
The employment supportive effects on mothers of the universal and subsidized child care policy have generated extensive research interests in previous literature. Elderly women or grandmothers are highly involved in grandchild care. However, little is known about how their employment responds to a child care policy. This paper fills the gap by evaluating the effects of strengthening accessibility to formal child care facilities on elderly women's labor supply. Using the first universal child care program in China, we develop a difference-in-differences strategy to identify the causal effects. Exploiting the variation in the expansion of child care across provinces and years, we find that the child care program has a strong and robust positive effect on promoting labor force participation of females between 40 and 60 years old with preschool grandchildren. A further investigation into the hours worked per week indicates that the policy effect is mostly at the extensive margins, rather at the intensive margins. The effect is more significant for wage earners with higher educational attainment and from higher-income families.
Speaker’s website:
http://english.phbs.pku.edu.cn/content-627-61-1.html