Public Kindergarten, Maternal Labor Supply and Earnings in the Longer Run

Abstract

Does access to free-of-charge kindergarten matter for maternal labor market outcomes? Can we rely on between-individuals differences in quarter of birth to identify such effects in the short and longer-run? I exploit across-states and over-time variation in the cutoffs which determine a child's eligibility to enroll in public kindergarten in the US. Through a double difference approach I isolate the effect of interest from spurious associations. The estimates suggest that the association between maternal labor supply and quarter of childbirth is indeed spurious. The longer-run evolution of key labor market outcomes is unaffected. The results should be seen as a cautionary note to researchers using quarter of birth as an exogenous source of variation in time of entry into the public education system.