To What Extent Do Childcare Enrolment Rates of Children Aged Three Impact the Motherhood Income Penalty? A Comparative Analysis of Ireland’s Liberal Welfare State and Sweden’s Social-Democratic Welfare State

The motherhood income penalty is a primary contributor to the persistent gender pay gap. Childcare is recognised as a key means of combatting this penalty, via minimising birth-related interruptions to work, freeing mothers from the temporal constraints of childcare, and boosting female labour market participation opportunities. The paper uses data from the Luxembourg Income (LIS) Study and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) to estimate the relationship between Ireland’s 2016 Early Childhood Care and Education Scheme Expansion and mothers’ income relative to non-mothers. Sweden is taken as a descriptive comparative case, given that it is recognised as the gold standard for the dual-earner/ dual-carer model. Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis is used to investigate the intensive margin and Poisson-Pseudo Maximum Likelihood regression analysis is used, as a novel estimator with LIS data, to investigate the extensive margin. The ECCE expansion did not alleviate the motherhood income penalty along either margin, indicating the policy provision may be insufficient. An expanded provision of hours and flexible childcare subsidies should be considered to better facilitate mothers in combining paid employment with unpaid care work.