School entry, afternoon care, and mothers’ labour supply

Ludovica Gambaro (), Jan Marcus and Frauke Peter
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Ludovica Gambaro: DIW Berlin

Empirical Economics, 2019, vol. 57, issue 3, No 3, 769-803

Abstract: Abstract The availability of childcare is a crucial factor for mothers’ labour force participation. While most of the literature examines childcare for preschool children, we specifically focus on primary school-aged children, estimating the effect of formal afternoon care on maternal labour supply. To do so, we use a novel matching technique, entropy balancing, and draw on the rich and longitudinal data of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We show that children’s afternoon care increases mothers’ employment rates and their working hours. To confirm the robustness of our results, we conduct a series of sensitivity analyses and apply a newly proposed method to assess possible bias from omitted variables. Our findings highlight how childcare availability shapes maternal employment patterns well after school entry.

Keywords: Afternoon care; Maternal labour supply; All-day schools; Entropy balancing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J63 J65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Journal Article: School entry, afternoon care, and mothers' labour supply (2019)
Working Paper: School Entry, Afternoon Care and Mothers' Labour Supply (2016)
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DOI: 10.1007/s00181-018-1462-3

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