Labor Force Participation Of Mothers Research Articles

Free, full‐day programming for four‐year‐old children in Nova Scotia and women's labour market outcomes

AbstractDespite significant changes in gender norms over the 20th century and a substantial increase in women's labour force participation, women continue to provide the majority of unpaid child care. This poses a barrier to further improvements in women's labour force participation, especially when child care is limited, inaccessible or unaffordable. This paper explores the impact of substantial increases in child care accessibility and affordability on women's labour market outcomes by exploiting the rollout of free, full‐day programming for four‐year‐old children in Nova Scotia from 2017/18 to 2020/21 using a staggered difference‐in‐differences approach. The program led to a 21 percentage‐point increase in the labour force participation of mothers with four‐year‐old children in Nova Scotia, via increased employment. Unsurprisingly, these impacts are significantly larger for women whose youngest child is four years old.

Mothers’ caregiving during COVID: The impact of marital property laws on women’s labor force status

If mothers take care of children more than fathers, then after the onset of COVID-19 mothers’ employment is expected to drop more than that of fathers. This gender gap is likely to be larger where women are less concerned about the financial repercussions of opting out of the labor force, and therefore the gender gap in employment is likely to grow more where community property or homemaking provisions give more protection to homemakers in case of union dissolution. Difference-in-differences and dynamic study estimations applied to CPS data for 2019–2020 show that after the onset of COVID-19 the labor force participation of mothers of school-age children—but not of fathers--dropped more in states with marital property laws more generous to parental caregivers. These results stand in contrast to how these groups’ labor force participation changed after the Great Recession, compared to pre-recession levels.

Home care allowance and labor market participation of immigrant and native-born mothers

Most countries still have a significant gender gap in labor force participation, and this gap is especially large for immigrants. Despite this gap, Germany introduced various forms of home care allowances in the last decade. Parallel to the extension of early child care and the inclusion of a legal claim for it, from 2013 to 2015, a nationwide home care allowance existed for parents who did not use public child care for children aged one or two years. After 2015, home care allowances continued to exist in several German federal states. Some politicians strongly criticized this transfer for allegedly decreasing work incentives, particularly for mothers with lower labor market integration, such as immigrant mothers. Using federal state differentiated data obtained from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we investigate the impact of a home care allowance on the labor market participation of mothers. For both native-born and especially immigrant mothers, the effects are significantly negative. We conclude that a home care allowance has negative effects on the labor force participation of mothers of young children, irrespective of the legal claim for and the extension of public child care.

“It’s Not Easy Being a Mom Especially When You Are Unemployed”: Navigating Childcare, a Necessary Social Service in South Africa

Childcare arrangements may act as a deterrent for mothers with young children who want to secure employment. The study aims to explore how childcare arrangements affects labor force participation of mothers with young children. Safe, reliable, and affordable childcare is a necessary social service that is not always available to lower-income women. Interviews were conducted with 15 Black African women between the ages of 21 to 35 in Durban, South Africa. Most women were unable to complete their education and could not secure employment because motherhood interrupted their plans. Those who were able to secure employment faced a difficult compromise between childcare and employment. Some of the women subjected their children to unsafe conditions by leaving them home-alone when they need to go out and search for work. Their children were often left unsupervised in a community riddled with high rates of violence and crime. The study finds that there is an urgent need for reliable childcare services for mothers in a low-income community to enhance female labor force participation. Future research should quantify the extent to which childcare, and other factors, affect mothers’ employment to promote timely and effective social services which are geared toward providing support for families.

Never Obsolete: Private Household Workers and the Transaction of Domestic Work

Faced with the most up to date washing machine, the undocumented Rosa, newly arrived from Guatemala to Los Angeles, does what many resourceful Mayan women would: She handwashes clothes and lays them on the lawn to dry.1 Played for comic relief in the 1983 movie El Norte, this confrontation of the domestic worker with the machine represents how, presumably in the face of dirty wars in Latin America and rising labor force participation of mothers with small children in the United States, well-to-do households had it both ways: They purchased the latest appliances and relied upon the labor of immigrant women. Recent migrants appeared more tractable than the African Americans who historically had worked in other women's homes. New models superseded old Maytags, but domestic workers never became obsolete, despite the predictions of sociologists and the panicked laments of would-be employers.

Does more free childcare help parents work more?

Many governments are considering expanding childcare subsidies to increase the labour force participation of parents (especially mothers) with young children. In this paper, we study the potential impact of such a policy by comparing the effects of offering free part-time childcare and of expanding this offer to the whole school day in the context of England. We use two different strategies exploiting free childcare eligibility rules based on date of birth. Both strategies suggest that free part-time childcare only marginally affects the labour force participation of mothers whose youngest child is eligible, but expanding from part-time to full-time free childcare leads to significant increases in labour force participation and employment of these mothers. These effects emerge immediately and grow over the months following entitlement. We find no evidence that parents adjust their labour supply in anticipation of their children’s entitlement to free childcare.

The effect of universal pre‐kindergarten policy on female labor force participation—A synthetic control approach

AbstractThis paper examines the effect of universal pre‐kindergarten (pre‐k) on the labor force participation of mothers with pre‐k‐aged children in Oklahoma and Georgia. I apply the synthetic control method (SCM) to Current Population Survey (CPS) data to identify the causal relationship between universal pre‐k and female labor market outcomes. I find that the universal pre‐k policy has a positive impact on the intensive margin of the labor supply of mothers with pre‐k‐aged children in Georgia, which provides full‐day child care services for all pre‐k programs. However, Oklahoma's universal pre‐k policy has little effect on the labor outcomes of mothers with 4‐year‐old children. The empirical results also suggest that universal pre‐k has heterogeneous impacts on subsamples stratified by education level, marital status, poverty status, and the age structure of children in the household.

Grandparent-provided childcare and labor force participation of mothers with preschool children in Urban China

This paper investigates the effects of grandparent-provided childcare and the access to daycare services on the labor force participation of mothers with children under 7 years old in urban China. Using two-stage residual inclusion method, the analysis finds that grandparent-provided childcare and the access to daycare services both have strong positive effects on maternal labor force participation (MLFP). Specifically, having grandparent-provided childcare increases MLFP by 38–43%, whereas having access to daycare services increases MLFP by 24–29%. The analysis also finds that having a healthy grandmother is a significant determinant in whether grandparent-provided childcare is utilized and that the demand for grandparent-provided childcare is higher in localities in which daycare services for children under 3 years old are more expensive. These results indicate that grandparents, particularly grandmothers, play an important role in sustaining MLFP, particularly as the supply of publicly funded daycare programs is declining.

Grandparent Care: A Key Factor in Mothers’ Labour Force Participation in the UK

AbstractThe relationships between paid work and informal care are critical to understanding how paid work is made possible. An extensive source of childcare in the UK is the intergenerational care grandparents provide. Using data from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative sample of children born in 2000, biprobit and instrumental variables (IV) analysis of mothers’ participation (given the social construction of caring responsibility) identifies a significant causal effect of grandparents’ childcare in that it:(i)raises the labour force participation of mothers with a child of school entry age on average by 12 percentage points (the average marginal effect);(ii)raises the participation of the group of mothers who use grandparent childcare by 33 percentage points compared to the situation if they did not have access to this care (the average treatment effect on the treated).Thus grandparent-provided childcare has a substantial impact on the labour market in the UK, an impact that may not be sustainable with forthcoming changes to the state pension age. Grandparents’ childcare increases the labour force participation of lone and partnered mothers at all levels of educational qualifications but by different degrees. Grandparents’ childcare enables mothers to enter paid work rather than extending their hours of paid work.

Paid Parental Leave and Female Labour Supply: A Review

This review is based on the international and Australian literature on paid parental leave. It does not aim to be exhaustive but focuses on the impact paid parental leave has on the labour force participation of mothers in developed countries. Four aspects of paid parental leave are explored, including the impacts of: introducing paid parental leave; changing the duration of existing paid parental leave; changing the generosity of existing paid parental leave payments; and paid paternity leave. It interprets the implications in the context of Australia, and includes descriptive information on the recent and current situation in Australia.

A developmental perspective on the link between parents' employment and children's obesity.

Despite public concerns about the negative implications of the increased labor force participation of mothers for child development, decades of research have revealed few risks and some benefits. One potential risk-a consistently observed association between maternal employment and childhood obesity-offers a window into how some dimensions of family health may be undermined by work in an economic and policy context that is not family friendly. The purpose of this article is to identify ways that a developmental perspective can enrich the literature on how children's weight may be related to the work experiences of both mothers and fathers across diverse populations, a literature that heretofore has been dominated by economic and demographic perspectives, focused almost solely on women, and largely ignored racial/ethnic variation. After reviewing the extant literature, we put forward a conceptual model that uses ecological and developmental insights to identify the mechanisms by which parents' employment might matter to children's weight and discuss this model in the context of the contemporary landscape of family policy. (PsycINFO Database Record

How does the personal become political? Assessing the impact of mothers' employment on daughters' participation in political organizations

The “Millennial” generation grew up in a period of changing gender roles, when labor force participation of mothers of young children was rapidly increasing. Past research has found that daughters of employed mothers are more likely to defy traditional gender scripts by seeking employment and authority positions. Building on this literature, I assess whether exposure to a full-time employed mother has an impact on Millennial women's participation in political organizations. I use prospective data on childhood context from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and apply propensity score weighting and a matching technique based on covariates. Evidence suggests that exposure to a full-time employed mother increases participation in political organizations for low-SES daughters. According to sensitivity tests, these findings are reasonably robust to unobserved confounders. In contrast, exposure to a full-time employed mother does not have a significant effect on the participation of sons or high-SES daughters.

Does the cost of child care affect female labor market participation? An evaluation of a French reform of childcare subsidies

This study evaluates the short-run impact of an increase in childcare subsidies on the use of paid childcare and the participation rate of mothers of preschool children. We use a natural experiment provided by the PAJE, a French reform in family allowances introduced in 2004. This reform temporarily creates discrepancies in the childcare subsidies received by families according to the year of birth of the children. We apply a difference-in-differences strategy on exhaustive French fiscal data that provide information on gross income as well as on the use of paid childcare services between 2005 and 2008. We use the fact that the new policy results in a significant increase in the use of paid childcare services. The effect on the labor force participation of mothers is significant but of a smaller magnitude. The highest impact is observed for mothers of large families.

The effect of children on female labor force participation in urban Iran

This paper estimates the effect of having children on labor force participation of mothers in urban Iranian areas. I exploit sex composition of children as an exogenous source of variation in family size to account for endogeneity of fertility. Using information from the Iranian Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) over three samples, namely, households with one and more, two and more, and three and more children, I find no significant effect of fertility on female labor force participation in Iran. JEL codes: J13, J22

Multivariate Statistical Analysis of Infant Mortality in Chennai India

Infant mortality is a key issue in public health, especially for developing countries. It is going to become a major concern to human society because of its serious effects on mortality. In our study, we find infant mortality is highly dependent on mother’s health (BMI), education and age, gestational age, baby size, labor force participation of mothers, mode of delivery, father education, family income, access to health services centers and agriculture land etc. because these social, economic, physical, medical and demographic variables are main reason of infant mortality. Others factors also studied but have not much effect on it. The study will measure the impact of various physical factors on infant mortality of population in Chennai, India. The basic objective of this study will be investigating the factors that are responsible of infant mortality.

Work Environment and OPT-out Rates at Motherhood across High-Education Career Paths

Observing a sample of Harvard alumnae in their late thirties, the authors study the relationship between workplace flexibility and the labor force participation of mothers. They first document a large variation in labor force participation rates across higher education fields. Mindful of the possibility of systematic patterns in the types of women who complete various graduate degrees, they use the rich information available for the sample, supplemented by the longitudinal nature of a subset of these data, to assess the extent to which these labor supply patterns may reflect variation in the difficulty of combining work with family. Although ruling out systematic sorting entirely is not possible, their evidence suggests that inflexible work environments “push” women out of the labor force at motherhood.

Childcare costs and the demand for children—evidence from a nationwide reform

Exploiting the exogenous variation in user fees caused by a Swedish childcare reform, we are able to identify the causal effect of childcare costs on fertility in a context in which childcare enrollment is almost universal, user fees are low, and labor force participation of mothers is very high. Anticipation of a reduction in childcare costs increased the number of first and higher-order births, but only seemed to affect the timing of second births. For families with many children we also find a marginally significant negative income effect on fertility.

Childcare Costs and the Demand for Children – Evidence from a Nationwide Reform

Exploiting the exogenous variation in childcare costs caused by a Swedish childcare reform, we are able to identify the causal effect of childcare costs on fertility in a context in which childcare enrollment is almost universal, user fees are low, and the labor force participation of mothers is very high. Anticipation of a reduction in childcare costs increased the number of first births, but only seemed to affect the timing of second births. We find a negative income effect for families with children already enrolled in child care.

The growing educational divide in mothers’ employment: an investigation based on the German micro-censuses 1976-2004

This article investigates whether the increase in the labour force participation of mothers in western Germany has been accompanied by growing social inequalities in maternal employment. The focus is on education-related differences in full-time, part-time and marginal employment, and, in particular, changes therein over time. It is assumed that worsening labour market opportunities for the less educated and a ‘familialistic’ social policy context have resulted in growing differentials in mothers’ employment by education. Data from the scientific use files of the German micro-censuses for the years 1976 to 2004 show that the part-time and marginal employment rates of mothers have increased, while full-time employment rates have declined. Reductions in full-time employment are most pronounced among less educated mothers, resulting in growing educational differences in the employment of mothers.

Childcare Costs and the Demand for Children - Evidence from a Nationwide Reform

We study the effect of child care costs on the fertility behavior of Swedish women and find that reductions in child care charges influence fertility decisions, even when costs are initially highly subsidized. Exploiting the exogenous variation in child care costs caused by a Swedish child care reform, we are able to identify the causal effect of child care costs on fertility in a context in which child care enrolment is almost universal and the labor force participation of mothers is very high. A typical household planning another child experienced a reduction in expected future child care costs of SEK 106,000 (USD 17,800). This reduction resulted in 3–5 more child births per 1,000 women during an 18 month period, which corresponds to a 4–6 per cent increase in the birth rate.