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Child-Care Choices by Working Mothers: The Case of Italy

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  • Daniela Del Boca
  • Marilena Locatelli
  • Daniela Vuri

Abstract

In spite of relatively generous public subsidies and a reputation for high quality, only a very limited proportion of Italian families use public child-care and a large proportion use informal care. In this paper, we attempt to explore the determinants of the use of child-care among dual workers families. Given the limitations of data available we match two different data sets: the Bank of Italy (SHIW) and ISTAT Multiscopo. We find evidence that the availability of public child-care affects in an important way its demand. We also find that increases in costs of public child-care reduce the use of public as well as private indicating a shift to informal child-care. The presence of a grandmother who lives near and is in good health is an important explanation of the choice especially in presence of very small children. An understanding of the importance of these factors is relevant in the evaluation of child-care policies. This is particularly important in Italy, where the majority of families with children have only one child and children would benefit also from the socialization aspects of the child-care system. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Daniela Del Boca & Marilena Locatelli & Daniela Vuri, 2005. "Child-Care Choices by Working Mothers: The Case of Italy," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 453-477, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:reveho:v:3:y:2005:i:4:p:453-477
    DOI: 10.1007/s11150-005-4944-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Katharina Wrohlich, 2008. "The excess demand for subsidized child care in Germany," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(10), pages 1217-1228.
    2. Viitanen, Tarja K & Arnaud Chevalier, 2003. "The Supply of Childcare in Britain: Do Mothers Queue for Childcare?," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 211, Royal Economic Society.
    3. Danièle Meulders & Jérôme De Henau & Sile Padraigin O'Dorchai, 2006. "The childcare triad? indicators assessing three fields of child policies towards working mothers in the EU-15," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7724, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    4. Maria Chiuri, 2000. "Quality and Demand of Child Care and Female Labour Supply in Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 14(1), pages 97-118, March.
    5. Rajeev H. Dehejia & Sadek Wahba, 2002. "Propensity Score-Matching Methods For Nonexperimental Causal Studies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 151-161, February.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    working mothers; child-care; J2; C3; D1;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • C3 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior

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