The Effects of Longer School Days on Mothers' Labor Force Participation

Matias Berthelon, Diana Kruger () and Melanie Oyarzún ()
Additional contact information
Diana Kruger: Universidad Adolfo Ibañez
Melanie Oyarzún: Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Chile

No 9212, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: Lack of adequate childcare is a main reason women cite for not participating in the labor force. We investigate the effect of a reform that lengthened school schedules from half to full days in Chile – essentially providing zero-cost childcare – on different maternal labor participation outcomes. We identify the effect of the policy from its implementation across municipalities over time and rule out alternative explanations, finding evidence of positive and important effects on participation and more permanent attachment to the labor force. Additionally, we also find results are driven by the provision of full day schooling in 1st and 2nd grades.

Keywords: female labor participation; primary education; full day schooling; education reform; Chile (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H4 I2 J2 J4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-edu, nep-lam and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp9212.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9212

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().