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The Power of the Purse: New Evidence on the Distribution of Income and Expenditures within the Family from a Canadian Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Catherine Haeck
  • Pierre Lefebvre
  • Xiaozhou Zhou

Abstract

To increase mother’s participation in the labour market and enhance child development, the Canadian province of Québec developed from 1997 a large scale low-fee childcare network. Previous studies have shown that the policy has significantly increased the labour force participation and annual weeks worked of mothers with children exposed to the program. Using Statistics Canada’s annual 1997 to 2009 Survey on Households Spending we document the increase in the maternal share of total household income in Québec and use of instrumental variables approach to estimate the impact of the policy on intra-household expenditures. The results show that more income in the hands of mothers impacts the expenditures structure within the household by raising budget shares on expenditures related to children, family goods and services having a collective aspect.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine Haeck & Pierre Lefebvre & Xiaozhou Zhou, 2014. "The Power of the Purse: New Evidence on the Distribution of Income and Expenditures within the Family from a Canadian Experiment," Cahiers de recherche 1415, CIRPEE.
    • Handle: RePEc:lvl:lacicr:1415
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Marie Connolly & Catherine Haeck, 2015. "Are Childcare Subsidies Good for Parental Well-being? Empirical Evidence from Three Countries," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 13(01), pages 09-15, April.
    2. Pierre Lefebvre & Claude Felteau, 2023. "Can universal preschool education intensities counterbalance parental socioeconomic gradients? Repeated international evidence from Fourth graders skills achievement," Working Papers 23-01, Research Group on Human Capital, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.
    3. Marie Connolly & Catherine Haeck, 2015. "Are Childcare Subsidies Good for Parental Well-being? Empirical Evidence from Three Countries," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 13(1), pages 09-15, 04.
    4. Sophia Schmitz, 2020. "The Impact of Publicly Funded Childcare on Parental Well-Being: Evidence from Cut-Off Rules," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 36(2), pages 171-196, April.
    5. repec:ces:ifodic:v:13:y:2015:i:1:p:19160201 is not listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Childcare policy; mother’s labor supply; intrahousehold expenditures; treatment effects; natural experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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