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The quantitative role of child care for female labor force participation and fertility

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  • Bick, Alexander

Abstract

Consistent with facts for a cross-section of OECD countries, I document that the labor force participation rate of West German mothers with children aged zero to two exceeds the corresponding child care enrollment rate whereas the opposite is true for mothers with children aged three to mandatory school age. I develop a life-cycle model that explicitly accounts for this age-dependent relationship through various types of non-paid and paid child care. The calibrated version of the model is used to evaluate two recently passed policy reforms concerning the supply of subsidized child care for children aged zero to two in Germany. These counterfactual policy experiments suggest that the lack of subsidized child care constitutes indeed for some females a barrier to participate in the labor market and depresses fertility.

Suggested Citation

  • Bick, Alexander, 2010. "The quantitative role of child care for female labor force participation and fertility," MPRA Paper 25474, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:25474
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    Cited by:

    1. Wrohlich, Katharina, 2006. "Labor Supply and Child Care Choices in a Rationed Child Care Market," IZA Discussion Papers 2053, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Rainald Borck, 2011. "Adieu Rabenmutter - The Effect of Culture on Fertility, Female Labour Supply, the Gender Wage Gap and Childcare," CESifo Working Paper Series 3337, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Child Care; Fertility; Life-cycle Female Labor Supply;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General

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