Grandparental Availability for Child Care and Maternal Employment: Pension Reform Evidence from Italy

Massimiliano Bratti, Tommaso Frattini and Francesco Scervini

No 9979, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper, we exploit pension reform-induced changes in retirement eligibility requirements to assess the role of grandparental child care availability in the employment of women who have children under 15. We focus on Italy for two reasons: first, it has low rates of female employment and little formal child care provision, and second, it has undergone several pension reforms in a relatively short time span. Our analysis shows that, among the women studied, those whose own mothers are retirement eligible have a 13 percent higher probability of being employed than those whose mothers are ineligible. The pension eligibility of maternal grandfathers and paternal grandparents, however, has no significant effect on the women's employment probability. We also demonstrate that the eligibility of maternal grandmothers mainly captures the effect of their availability for child care. Hence, pension reforms, by potentially robbing households of an important source of flexible, low-cost child care, could have unintended negative consequences for the employment rates of women with children.

Keywords: grandparental child care; maternal employment; pension reform; retirement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2016-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-dem, nep-eur and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Published - revised version published as "Grandparental availability for child care and maternal labor force participation: Pension reform evidence from Italy" in: Journal of Population Economics, 2018, 31(4), 1239–1277

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Related works:
Journal Article: Grandparental availability for child care and maternal labor force participation: pension reform evidence from Italy (2018)
Working Paper: Grandparental availability for child care and maternal labor force participation: Pension reform evidence from Italy (2017)
Working Paper: Grandparental Availability for Child Care and Maternal Employment: Pension Reform Evidence from Italy (2016)
Working Paper: Grandparental Availability for Child Care and Maternal Employment: Pension Reform Evidence from Italy Abstract:In this paper, we exploit pension reform-induced changes in retirement eligibility requirements to assess the role of grandparental child care availability in the employment of women who have children under 15. We focus on Italy for two reasons: first, it has low rates of female employment and little formal child care provision, and second, it has undergone several pension reforms in a relatively short time span. Our analysis shows that, among the women studied, those whose own mothers are retirement eligible have a 13 percent higher probability of being employed than those whose mothers are ineligible. The pension eligibility of maternal grandfathers and paternal grandparents, however, has no significant effect on the women’s employment probability. We also demonstrate that the eligibility of maternal grandmothers mainly captures the effect of their availability for child care. Hence, pension reforms, by potentially robbing households of an important source of flexible, low-cost child care, could have unintended negative consequences for the employment rates of women with children. Length: 45 pages (2016)
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