Reconciling work and family life: the effect of French family policies

In France, having more than two children has a causal negative impact on mothers' labour supply. The question addressed in this paper is whether some family policies alter this effect. The idea is that by improving the conditions of the conciliation between family life and professional life, family policies could reduce the negative impact of having more than two children on mothers' participation. Conversely, some family policies could increase this effect by inciting mothers to have an entry-exit strategy on the labour market according to the different periods of their lives, rather than to reconcile family and professional responsibilities. To address this issue, we focus on two different types of family policy: the paid parental leave and the supply of child care for young kids. To measure the effect of these family policies, we have spotted temporal or spatial changes that modify the conditions in which individual decisions are taken. Firstly, we show that after the July 1994 extension of the Allocation parentale d'éducation to parents of two children (among which one is less than three years old), that is when families of two and more than two children have the same incentive to take a paid parental leave, having more than two children has no longer a negative effect on the participation probability of mothers. In addition, this is particularly true for young women having no more than the school-leaving certificate, which happen to be the main beneficiaries of the benefit. Secondly, using the heterogeneity in the geographical distribution of two-years-old in pre-elementary public schools, we find that supplying mothers of two years old children with developed child care modifies the effect of fertility on mothers' labour supply and seems to help mothers to better conciliate family and professional life but our estimates are less convincing.