IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7058.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Child Care and Mothers' Employment Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Patricia M. Anderson
  • Philip B. Levine

Abstract

Rising female labor force participation and recent changes to the welfare system have increased the importance of child care for all women and, particularly, the less-skilled. This paper focuses on the child care decisions of women who differ by their skill level and the role that costs play in their work decision. After reviewing government child-care programs targeted at less-skilled women, we present a descriptive analysis of current utilization and child care costs. We emphasize differences across skill groups, showing that the least-skilled women both use less costly paid care and are more likely to use unpaid care. We then survey the existing evidence regarding the responsiveness of female labor supply to child care costs, reviewing both econometric studies and demonstration projects that include child care components. To investigate variation in the response to child care cost across skill levels, we implement models similar to this past literature. We conclude that while the overall elasticity of labor force participation with respect to the market price of child care is between -0.05 and -0.35, this elasticity is larger for the least skilled women and declines with skill. Throughout the paper, we reflect upon the implications of our analysis for welfare reform.

Suggested Citation

  • Patricia M. Anderson & Philip B. Levine, 1999. "Child Care and Mothers' Employment Decisions," NBER Working Papers 7058, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7058
    Note: CH LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7058.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Eissa & H. W. Hoynes, "undated". "The Earned Income Tax Credit and the Labor Supply of Married Couples," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1194-99, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    2. Gordon Cleveland & Morley Gunderson & Douglas Hyatt, 1996. "Child Care Costs and the Employment Decision of Women: Canadian Evidence," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(1), pages 132-151, February.
    3. William M. Gentry & Alison P. Hagy, 1996. "The Distributional Effects of the Tax Treatment of Child Care Expenses," NBER Chapters, in: Empirical Foundations of Household Taxation, pages 99-134, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Connelly, Rachel, 1992. "The Effect of Child Care Costs on Married Women's Labor Force Participation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(1), pages 83-90, February.
    5. Martin Feldstein & James M. Poterba, 1996. "Empirical Foundations of Household Taxation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feld96-1.
    6. Susan L. Averett & H. Elizabeth Peters & Donald M. Waldman, 1997. "Tax Credits, Labor Supply, And Child Care," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(1), pages 125-135, February.
    7. Mroz, Thomas A, 1987. "The Sensitivity of an Empirical Model of Married Women's Hours of Work to Economic and Statistical Assumptions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(4), pages 765-799, July.
    8. Blau, David M & Robins, Philip K, 1988. "Child-Care Costs and Family Labor Supply," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(3), pages 374-381, August.
    9. Berger, Mark C & Black, Dan A, 1992. "Child Care Subsidies, Quality of Care, and the Labor Supply of Low-Income, Single Mothers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(4), pages 635-642, November.
    10. David M. Blau & Alison P. Hagy, 1998. "The Demand for Quality in Child Care," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 104-146, February.
    11. Kimmel, Jean, 1995. "The Effectiveness of Child-Care Subsidies in Encouraging the Welfare-to-Work Transition of Low-Income Single Mothers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 271-275, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rachel Connelley & Jean Kimmel, 1999. "Marital Status and Full-time/Part-time Work Status in Child Care Choices: Changing the Rules of the Game," Upjohn Working Papers 99-58, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    2. David Blau, 2003. "Child Care Subsidy Programs," NBER Chapters, in: Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, pages 443-516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Rachel Connelly & Jean Kimmel, 2003. "The Effect of Child Care Costs on the Employment and Welfare Recipiency of Single Mothers," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(3), pages 498-519, January.
    4. Yusuf Emre Akgunduz & Janneke Plantenga, 2018. "Child Care Prices And Maternal Employment: A Meta†Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 118-133, February.
    5. Müller, Kai-Uwe & Wrohlich, Katharina, 2020. "Does subsidized care for toddlers increase maternal labor supply? Evidence from a large-scale expansion of early childcare," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    6. Y.E. Akgündüz & J. Plantenga, 2015. "Childcare Prices and Maternal Employment: a Meta-Analysis," Working Papers 15-14, Utrecht School of Economics.
    7. Colm Harmon & Claire Finn & Arnaud Chevalier & Tarja Viitanen, 2006. "The economics of early childhood care and education : technical research paper for the National Economic and Social Forum," Open Access publications 10197/671, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    8. Sean P. Sall, 2014. "Maternal Labor Supply And The Availability Of Public Pre-K: Evidence From The Introduction Of Prekindergarten Into American Public Schools," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 17-34, January.
    9. Michael Lokshin, 2004. "Household Childcare Choices and Women’s Work Behavior in Russia," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(4).
    10. Jonah B. Gelbach, 2002. "Public Schooling for Young Children and Maternal Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 307-322, March.
    11. David Blau & Erdal Tekin, 2001. "The Determinants and Consequences of Child Care Subsidy Receipt by Low-Income Families," JCPR Working Papers 213, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    12. Robert Breunig & Xiaodong Gong & Anthony King, 2012. "Partnered Women's Labour Supply and Child‐Care Costs in Australia: Measurement Error and the Child‐Care Price," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(s1), pages 51-69, June.
    13. Robert J. Lemke & Ann Dryden Witte & Magaly Queralt & Robert Witt, 2000. "Child Care and the Welfare to Work Transition," NBER Working Papers 7583, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Erdal Tekin, 2007. "Childcare Subsidies, Wages, and Employment of Single Mothers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(2).
    15. Monica Fong & Lokshin, Michael, 2000. "Child care and women's labor force participation in Romania," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2400, The World Bank.
    16. Guyonne Kalb, 2009. "Children, Labour Supply and Child Care: Challenges for Empirical Analysis," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 42(3), pages 276-299, September.
    17. Minagawa Junichi & Upmann Thorsten, 2014. "A Single Parent’s Labor Supply: Evaluating Different Child Care Fees within an Intertemporal Framework," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 177-215, January.
    18. Tekin, Erdal, 2005. "Child care subsidy receipt, employment, and child care choices of single mothers," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 1-6, October.
    19. Andrén, Thomas, 2002. "A Structural Model of Childcare, Welfare, and the Labor Supply of Single Mothers," Working Papers in Economics 82, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    20. Junichi Minagawa & Thorsten Upmann, 2006. "Labor Supply and the Demand for Child Care: An Intertemporal Approach," CESifo Working Paper Series 1819, CESifo.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7058. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.