Henning Hermes, Marina Krauss;, Philipp Lergetporer, Frauke
Peter, Simon Wiederhold
Early
Child Care, Maternal Labor Supply, and Gender Equality:
A Randomized Controlled Trial*
Abstract:
We
provide experimental evidence that enabling access to universal early
child care increases maternal
labor supply and promotes gender equality among families with lower
socioeconomic status (SES). Our
intervention offers information and customized help with child care
applications, leading to a boost in
child care enrollment among lower-SES families. 18 months after the
intervention, we find substantial
increases in maternal full-time employment (+160%), maternal earnings
(+22%), and household income
(+10%). Intriguingly, the positive employment effects are not only
driven by extended hours at child care
centers, but also by an increase in care hours by fathers. Gender
equality also benefits more broadly from
better access to child care: The treatment improves a gender equality
index that combines information
on intra-household division of working hours, care hours, and earnings
by 40% of a standard deviation,
with significant increases in each dimension. For higher-SES families,
we consistently observe negligible,
insignificant treatment effects.
JEL: J13, J18, J22, C93
Paper:
Paper available as pdf-file.
Beitrag Nr. 345, Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsreihe, Institut
für
Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Augsburg
Contact:
Henning Hermes,
University of Düsseldorf, Institute for Competition Economics
(DICE),
D-40225 Düsseldorf,
Germany, phone +49-211-81-15052
email: hermes@dice.hhu.de
Marina
Krauß, University of Augsburg, Department of
Economics,
D-86135
Augsburg,
Germany, phone +49-821-598-4208
email: marina.krauss@wiwi.uni-augsburg.de
Philipp
Lergetporer, Technical University of Munich, School of
Management,
D-74076 Heilbronn,
Germany
email: philipp.lergetporer@tum.de
Frauke
Peter, Deutsches Zentrum für Hochschul- und
Wissenschaftsforschung (DZHW),
D-30159 Hannover,
Germany, phone +49-511-450670-126
email: peter@dzhw.eu
Simon
Wiederhold, University of Ingolstadt,
D-85049 Ingolstadt,
Germany, phone +49-841-937-21855
email: simon.wiederhold@ku.de
Ra.,
04.04.2023