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To Work or Not to Work? Child Development and Maternal Labor Supply

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Listed:
  • Paul Frijters
  • David W. Johnston
  • Manisha Shah
  • Michael A. Shields

Abstract

We estimate the effect of early child development on maternal labor force participation. Mothers of poorly developing children may remain at home to care for their children. Alternatively, mothers may enter the labor force to pay for additional educational and health resources. Which action dominates is the empirical question we answer in this paper. We control for the potential endogeneity of child development by using an instrumental variables approach, uniquely exploiting exogenous variation in child development associated with child handedness. We find that a one unit increase in poor child development decreases maternal labor force participation by approximately 10 percentage points. (JEL J13, J16, J22)

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Frijters & David W. Johnston & Manisha Shah & Michael A. Shields, 2009. "To Work or Not to Work? Child Development and Maternal Labor Supply," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(3), pages 97-110, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:1:y:2009:i:3:p:97-110
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.1.3.97
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Huong Thu Le & Ha Trong Nguyen, 2017. "Parental health and children's cognitive and noncognitive development: New evidence from the longitudinal survey of Australian children," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 1767-1788, December.
    2. Eriksen, Tine L. Mundbjerg & Gaulke, Amanda & Skipper, Niels & Svensson, Jannet, 2021. "The impact of childhood health shocks on parental labor supply," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    3. Halla, Martin & Zweimüller, Martina, 2014. "Parental Response to Early Human Capital Shocks: Evidence from the Chernobyl Accident," IZA Discussion Papers 7968, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Mahmud, Mir, 2016. "Child Disability, Children’s Time with Mother and Maternal Employment," MPRA Paper 72816, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Lukáš Lafférs & Bernhard Schmidpeter, 2021. "Early child development and parents' labor supply," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 190-208, March.
    6. Wei Fan & Catherine Porter, 2020. "Reinforcement or compensation? Parental responses to children’s revealed human capital levels," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 233-270, January.
    7. Konstantin Kunze, 2022. "Public Health Insurance of Children and Parental Labor Market Outcomes," Working Papers 349, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    8. Porto Natalia & Carella Laura & Rucci Ana Clara & Velazquez Cecilia, 2023. "Children living with disabilities and mother`s labor supply in developing countries: evidence from Argentina," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4686, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    9. Daniel Kuehnle, 2013. "The causal effect of family income on child health: A re-examination using an instrumental variables approach," Working Papers 133, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    10. Arlette Simo Fotso, 2017. "Child Disability and Mothers' Labour Market Participation in Cameroon," Journal of African Development, African Finance and Economic Association (AFEA), vol. 19(1), pages 27-60.
    11. Regassa, Mekdim D. & Abate, Gashaw T. & Kubik, Zaneta, 2020. "Incentivizing and Retaining Public Workers in Remote Areas: A Discrete Choice Experiment with Agricultural Extension Agents in Ethiopia," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304498, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Dakyung Seong, 2022. "Binary response model with many weak instruments," Papers 2201.04811, arXiv.org, revised May 2023.
    13. Paul Frijters & David Johnston & Manisha Shah & Michael Shields, 2013. "Intrahousehold Resource Allocation: Do Parents Reduce or Reinforce Child Ability Gaps?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(6), pages 2187-2208, December.
    14. Voit, Falk A. C., 2023. "Adverse birth outcomes and parental labor market participation after birth," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-710, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    15. David W. Johnston & Michael E. R. Nicholls & Manisha Shah & Michael A. Shields, 2013. "Handedness, health and cognitive development: evidence from children in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 176(4), pages 841-860, October.
    16. Wei Chen, 2019. "Income and Effort: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 47(4), pages 485-497, December.
    17. Kevin Denny & Wen Zhang, 2010. "In praise of ambidexterity: How a continuum of handedness predicts social adjustment," Working Papers 201004, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    18. Zeng-Hua Lu & Alec Zuo, 2017. "Child disability, welfare payments, marital status and mothers’ labor supply: Evidence from Australia," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1339769-133, January.
    19. Jia Wu & Jiada Lin & Xiao Han, 2023. "Compensation for girls in early childhood and its long-run impact: family investment strategies under rainfall shocks," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1225-1268, July.
    20. Kai Eberhard Kruk, 2013. "Parental Income And The Dynamics Of Health Inequality In Early Childhood—Evidence From The Uk," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(10), pages 1199-1214, October.
    21. Kuehnle, Daniel, 2014. "The causal effect of family income on child health in the UK," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 137-150.
    22. Cho, Seungyeon, 2021. "Is handedness exogenously determined? Counterevidence from South Korea," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    23. Meng-Wen Tsou & Jin-Tan Liu & Kuang-Hsien Wang, 2014. "Impact of Low Birth Weight Child on Maternal Labour Force Participation: Evidence from Taiwan," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 483-501, October.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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    1. To Work or Not to Work? Child Development and Maternal Labor Supply (American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2009) in ReplicationWiki

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