Policy complementarity or substitution? The joint employment effects of active labor market policy and early childhood education and care

Ilze Plavgo, Brian Burgoon and Anton Hemerijck
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Ilze Plavgo: ESPOL-LAB - ESPOL-LAB - ESPOL - European School of Political and Social Sciences / École Européenne de Sciences Politiques et Sociales - ICL - Institut Catholique de Lille - UCL - Université catholique de Lille
Brian Burgoon: UvA - Universiteit van Amsterdam = University of Amsterdam
Anton Hemerijck: EUI - European University Institute - Institut Universitaire Européen

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Abstract: Scholars have long argued that social policies affect people's employment chances in interconnected ways, where a given policy intervention might have employment effects that are strengthened or dampened by other interventions. This article theorizes and empirically assesses how national active labor market polices (ALMP) and early childhood education and care (ECEC) interact in affecting individuals' employment chances. The objective is to address scholarly controversy over whether this policy interaction entails complementarity, substitution, or non-interaction. Analyses draw on EU-SILC individual-level true-panel survey data 2005–2019 from twenty-six European countries and aggregate policy indicators. Results show that ALMP and ECEC have complementary positive implications for employment probability among individuals with children, especially women. ALMP effort tends to have a more positive association with employment probability as ECEC effort becomes more substantial, and vice versa. Such patterns remain after controlling for individual characteristics, previous year's employment status, country fixed effects, and macro-economic conditions.

Keywords: labor market institutions; social policy; institutional complementarity; employment; family; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05-13
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Published in Socio-Economic Review, 2026, ⟨10.1093/ser/mwag021⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05628955

DOI: 10.1093/ser/mwag021

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