 Mobilizing the manpower of mothers: Childcare under the Lanham Act during WWIIClaudia Goldin, Claudia Olivetti and Joseph Ferrie Explorations in Economic History, 2025, vol. 97, issue C Abstract: The Lanham Act was a federal infrastructure bill passed by Congress in 1940 and eventually used to fund programs for the preschool and school-aged children of working women during WWII. It remains, to this day, the only example in US history of an (almost) universal, largely federally supported childcare program. We explore its role in enabling and increasing the labor supply of mothers during WWII using information on the program, war contracts, and employment at the city level. Use of Lanham Act funds for a wartime childcare program was initially controversial. However, the program was eventually well funded per child in average daily attendance and provided generally high-quality care. But it was late to start, limited in scope, and incapable of greatly increasing women’s employment in the aggregate. Childcare facilities were funded more in places that already had higher participation rates of mothers and where the wartime need was the greatest. The impact on the children served is still to be determined. Keywords: Childcare; Female labor force; Manpower; World War II; Mobilization (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:exehis:v:97:y:2025:i:c:s0014498325000312 DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101684 Access Statistics for this article Explorations in Economic History is currently edited by R.H. Steckel More articles in Explorations in Economic History from Elsevier |
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