Public Preschool and Maternal Labor Supply: Evidence from the Introduction of Kindergartens into American Public Schools

Elizabeth Cascio

No 12179, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Beginning in the mid-1960s, many state governments, particularly in the South and West, began to subsidize kindergartens for the first time. These initiatives generated wide variation across states over time in the supply of seats for five year olds in public schools. This paper uses the staggered timing and age-targeting of these preschool expansions to examine how the provision of universal child care through public schools affects maternal labor supply. I find that single women with five year olds but no younger children were more likely to be employed once kindergartens were available. The estimated effect is large, implying that three mothers entered the labor force for every ten children enrolled in public school. By contrast, I detect no significant labor supply response among other single women with eligible children or among married mothers of five year olds. These findings complement other research suggesting that preschools targeted toward at-risk populations, such as children in single-parent families, are more cost effective than universal programs.

JEL-codes: H52 I20 J13 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-pbe
Note: CH LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Published as Cascio, Elizabeth, 2009. "Maternal Labor Supply and the Introduction of Kindergartens into American Public Schools." The Journal of Human Resources, 44(1), 140-170, Winter 2009.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12179.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:nbr:nberwo:12179

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12179

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().