Trust, Child Care Technology Choice and Female Labor Force Participation

Mayssun El-Attar ()
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Mayssun El-Attar: McGill University

No 3135, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper we test the effect of trust on the choice of child care technology. We estimate individual-level trust as a latent attribute using survey questions on personal attitudes by applying the econometric methodology by Spady (2007). Compared to other measures of trust, using this technique has several advantages: It makes more efficient use of information by allowing the aggregation of information from several questions and by exploiting additional information from personal and demographic characteristics. It requires very few parametric assumptions and it is conceptually cleaner and more consistent with theory than the proxies or demographic characteristics often used in previous work. Having estimated the individual attitudes to trust using data from the European Social Survey, we analyze their personal, demographic, and regional determinants. We find that trust matters for the degree of externalness of the child care technology people choose. It can therefore be a possible explanation for differences in female labor force participation across countries and across sociological groups.

Keywords: latent attitudes; labor force participation; child care; trust; item response models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 J13 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2007-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - published in: Review of Economics of the Household, 2013, 11 (4), 507-544

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