IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16880.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Access to Formal Childcare for Toddlers and Parental Employment and Earnings

Author

Listed:
  • Fukai, Taiyo

    (University of Tsukuba)

  • Kondo, Ayako

    (University of Tokyo)

Abstract

This study examines the effect of availability of accredited childcare centers, the most popular category of publicly licensed childcare centers in Japan, on mothers' employment and earnings. We focus on mothers with children less than two years old, most of whom are returning from parental leave to full-time work under excess demand for center-based childcare. We construct an instrument from the first-round assignment process of April enrollment and find that the enrollment to an accredited childcare center increases the employment rate of mothers of zero- and one-year-old children by 40.3 and 18.8 percentage points, respectively. The effect of such enrollment on mothers' annual salary is mostly explained by the extensive margin.

Suggested Citation

  • Fukai, Taiyo & Kondo, Ayako, 2024. "Access to Formal Childcare for Toddlers and Parental Employment and Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 16880, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16880
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16880.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henrik Kleven & Camille Landais & Johanna Posch & Andreas Steinhauer & Josef Zweimüller, 2024. "Do Family Policies Reduce Gender Inequality? Evidence from 60 Years of Policy Experimentation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 110-149, May.
    2. Yamaguchi, Shintaro & Asai, Yukiko & Kambayashi, Ryo, 2018. "Effects of subsidized childcare on mothers’ labor supply under a rationing mechanism," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 1-17.
    3. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    4. Tymon Sloczynski & S. Derya Uysal & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge & Derya Uysal, 2022. "Abadie's Kappa and Weighting Estimators of the Local Average Treatment Effect," CESifo Working Paper Series 9715, CESifo.
    5. Bauernschuster, Stefan & Schlotter, Martin, 2015. "Public child care and mothers' labor supply—Evidence from two quasi-experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-16.
    6. Elizabeth U. Cascio, 2009. "Maternal Labor Supply and the Introduction of Kindergartens into American Public Schools," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(1).
    7. Pierre Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan, 2008. "Child-Care Policy and the Labor Supply of Mothers with Young Children: A Natural Experiment from Canada," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 519-548, July.
    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. Gordon Dahl & Katrine Loken, 2024. "Families, Public Policies, and the Labor Market," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2423, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    2. Eckhoff Andresen, Martin & Havnes, Tarjei, 2019. "Child care, parental labor supply and tax revenue," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    3. Brewer, Mike & Cattan, Sarah & Crawford, Claire & Rabe, Birgitta, 2022. "Does more free childcare help parents work more?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    4. Katrin Huber & Geske Rolvering, 2023. "Public child care and mothers’ career trajectories," CEPA Discussion Papers 64, Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
    5. Katrin Huber & Geske Rolvering, 2023. "Public child care and mothers’ career trajectories," Working Papers 228, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    6. Kunze, Astrid & Liu, Xingfei, 2019. "Universal Childcare for the Youngest and the Maternal Labour Supply," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 3/2019, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    7. Kairon Shayne D. Garcia & Benjamin W. Cowan, 2024. "Childcare Responsibilities and Parental Labor Market Outcomes During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 153-200, June.
    8. Yamaguchi, Shintaro & Asai, Yukiko & Kambayashi, Ryo, 2018. "Effects of subsidized childcare on mothers’ labor supply under a rationing mechanism," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 1-17.
    9. Felfe, Christina & Lechner, Michael & Thiemann, Petra, 2016. "After-school care and parents' labor supply," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 64-75.
    10. Eric Schuss & Mohammed Azaouagh, 2021. "Combining parenthood and work: transmission channels and heterogeneous returns to early public childcare," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 641-676, September.
    11. Akabayashi, Hideo & Ruberg, Tim & Shikishima, Chizuru & Yamashita, Jun, 2023. "Education-oriented and care-oriented preschools: Implications on child development," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. 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).
    13. Jasmin Thomas, 2024. "Free, full‐day programming for four‐year‐old children in Nova Scotia and women's labour market outcomes," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(2), pages 588-621, May.
    14. Fabian T. Dehos & Marie Paul, 2023. "The Effects of After-School Programs on Maternal Employment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(5), pages 1644-1678.
    15. Agnese Romiti, 2018. "The Effects of Immigration on Household Services, Labour Supply and Fertility," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 80(4), pages 843-869, August.
    16. Huber, Katrin, 2019. "The role of the career costs of children for the effect of public child care on fertility and maternal employment," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-77-19, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    17. Huebener, Mathias & Pape, Astrid & Spiess, C. Katharina, 2020. "Parental labour supply responses to the abolition of day care fees," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 510-543.
    18. Anna Lovász & Ágnes Szabó-Morvai, 2019. "Childcare availability and maternal labor supply in a setting of high potential impact," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 2127-2165, June.
    19. Busse, Anna & Gathmann, Christina, 2018. "Free Daycare and its Effects on Children and their Families," IZA Discussion Papers 11269, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Matthias Krapf & Anja Roth & Michaela Slotwinski, 2020. "The Effect of Childcare on Parental Earnings Trajectories," CESifo Working Paper Series 8764, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    childcare demand; childcare cost; maternal 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
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp16880. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.