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Mothers Working during Preschool Years and Child Skills. Does Income Compensate?

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  • Nicoletti, Cheti

    (University of York)

  • Salvanes, Kjell G.

    (Norwegian School of Economics)

  • Tominey, Emma

    (University of York)

Abstract

Increasing mothers' labour supply in a child's preschool years can cause a reduction in time investments that lead to a negative direct effect on mid-childhood and teenage outcomes. But as mothers' work hours increase, income will rise. We ask whether income can compensate for the negative effect of hours by adopting a novel mediation analysis that exploits exogenous variation in both mothers' hours and family income in pre-school years. As expected we find a negative direct effect of an increase in mother's work hours on child test scores at age 11 and 15. However, income fully compensates for this negative direct effect. This is true for the full sample of children, for boys and girls and for children in households whose mother has a low and high level of education.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicoletti, Cheti & Salvanes, Kjell G. & Tominey, Emma, 2020. "Mothers Working during Preschool Years and Child Skills. Does Income Compensate?," IZA Discussion Papers 13079, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13079
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    Cited by:

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    2. Hélène Le Forner, 2021. "Formation of Children's Cognitive and Socio-Emotional Skills: Is All Parental Time Equal?," Working Papers halshs-03160526, HAL.
    3. Claire Crawford & Laura Outhwaite, 2023. "Why should we invest in Early Childhood Education and Care?," CEPEO Briefing Note Series 24, UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, revised Mar 2023.
    4. Sarah Cattan & Kjell Salvanes & Emma Tominey, 2022. "First Generation Elite: The Role of School Networks," Working Papers 2022-028, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    5. Alena Bičáková & Klára Kalíšková, 2024. "Is longer maternal care always beneficial? The impact of a 4-year paid parental leave," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-45, June.
    6. Isha Gupta, 2020. "Fertility And Mothers’ Labour Force Participation In Rural India," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0267, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    7. Mike Brewer & Thang Dang & Emma Tominey, 2023. "Welfare reform: Employment, mental health and intrahousehold insurance," CEPEO Working Paper Series 23-06, UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    parental investments; test scores; child development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

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