IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/shf/wpaper/2007011.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Childcare voucher and labour market behaviour: Experimental evidence from Finland

Author

Listed:
  • Tarja Viitanen

    (Department of Economics, The University of Sheffield)

Abstract

This article provides experimental estimates of the impact of a voucher for private care on labour force participation and use of private and public child care within the Nordic system of universal provision of public care. In a market that was providing high-quality, low-cost public child care, a voucher is nevertheless found to have a significant, positive effect for the use of private child care with zero effects on either use of public care or labour force participation. The use of private increased by five percentage points in the whole country and by five to seven percentage points in areas that suffer from excess demand for child care as a result of the introduction of the private child care voucher.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Tarja Viitanen, 2007. "Childcare voucher and labour market behaviour: Experimental evidence from Finland," Working Papers 2007011, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2007.
    • Handle: RePEc:shf:wpaper:2007011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/07/46/28/SERP2007011.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2007
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/07/46/28/SERP2007011.pdf
    File Function: Revised version, 2007
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ghazala Naz, 2004. "The impact of cash-benefit reform on parents’ labour force participation," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(2), pages 369-383, June.
    2. Pål Schøne, 2004. "Labour supply effects of a cash-for-care subsidy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(4), pages 703-727, December.
    3. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2002. "Simple and Bias-Corrected Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects," NBER Technical Working Papers 0283, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Meyer, Bruce D, 1995. "Natural and Quasi-experiments in Economics," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(2), pages 151-161, April.
    5. Philip Hemmings & David Turner & Seija Parviainen, 2003. "Enhancing the Effectiveness of Public Spending in Finland," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 358, OECD Publishing.
    6. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    7. Arleen Leibowitz & Linda Waite & Christina Witsberger, 1988. "Child care for preschoolers: Differences by child’s age," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(2), pages 205-220, May.
    8. Rajeev H. Dehejia & Sadek Wahba, 2002. "Propensity Score-Matching Methods For Nonexperimental Causal Studies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 151-161, February.
    9. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1996. "Public Provision of Private Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 57-84, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Helmut Mahringer & Christine Zulehner, 2015. "Child-care costs and mothers’ employment rates: an empirical analysis for Austria," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 837-870, December.
    2. Christoph Zangger & Janine Widmer & Sandra Gilgen, 2021. "Work, Childcare, or Both? Experimental Evidence on the Efficacy of Childcare Subsidies in Raising Parental Labor Supply," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 449-472, September.
    3. Tapio Räsänen & Eva Österbacka, 2024. "Subsidizing private childcare in a universal regime," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 199-230, March.
    4. BOUSSELIN Audrey, 2019. "Expanding access to universal childcare: Effects on childcare arrangements and maternal employment," LISER Working Paper Series 2019-11, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    5. Eva Österbacka & Tapio Räsänen, 2022. "Back to work or stay at home? Family policies and maternal employment in Finland," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(3), pages 1071-1101, July.
    6. Kosonen Tuomas, 2014. "To Work or Not to Work? The Effect of Childcare Subsidies on the Labour Supply of Parents," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 14(3), pages 817-848, July.
    7. Taryn W. Morrissey, 2017. "Child care and parent labor force participation: a review of the research literature," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 1-24, March.

    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. Viitanen, Tarja, 2007. "Public versus Private Provision of Daycare: An Experimental Evaluation," IZA Discussion Papers 3009, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Hugo Ñopo, 2008. "Matching as a Tool to Decompose Wage Gaps," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 290-299, May.
    3. 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.
    4. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    5. Dettmann, Eva & Becker, Claudia & Schmeißer, Christian, 2010. "Is there a Superior Distance Function for Matching in Small Samples?," IWH Discussion Papers 3/2010, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    6. Girma, Sourafel & Görg, Holger & Strobl, Eric, 2003. "Government Grants, Plant Survival and Employment Growth: A Micro-Econometric Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 838, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Sánchez-Mangas, Rocio & Sánchez-Marcos, Virginia, 2008. "Balancing family and work: The effect of cash benefits for working mothers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1127-1142, December.
    8. Holger Görg & Eric Strobl, 2006. "Do Government Subsidies Stimulate Training Expenditure? Microeconometric Evidence from Plant‐Level Data," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(4), pages 860-876, April.
    9. Zhang, Cheng & Zhao, Ziwei & Wang, Qunwei & Xu, Bing, 2022. "Title: Holistic governance strategy to reduce carbon intensity," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    10. Jones A.M & Rice N, 2009. "Econometric Evaluation of Health Policies," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 09/09, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    11. Helena Holmlund & Olmo Silva, 2014. "Targeting Noncognitive Skills to Improve Cognitive Outcomes: Evidence from a Remedial Education Intervention," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(2), pages 126-160.
    12. Steven Lehrer & Gregory Kordas, 2013. "Matching using semiparametric propensity scores," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 13-45, February.
    13. Bertrand, Olivier, 2009. "Effects of foreign acquisitions on R&D activity: Evidence from firm-level data for France," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1021-1031, July.
    14. Junhui Shi & Fang Wang, 2022. "The Effect of High-Speed Rail on Cropland Abandonment in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-16, July.
    15. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2008. "On the Failure of the Bootstrap for Matching Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1537-1557, November.
    16. Hernández Alemán, Anastasia & León, Carmelo J. & Márquez-Ramos, Laura, 2017. "The Effect of the Universal Child Care Cash Benefit on Female Labour Supply in Spain /Efecto de la prestación monetaria universal para el cuidado de hijos en la oferta de trabajo femenina en España," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 35, pages 801-818, Agosto.
    17. Sourafel Girma & Holger Görg, 2016. "Multinationals’ Productivity Advantage: Scale Or Technology?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES AND HOST COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT Volume 53: World Scientific Studies in International Economics, chapter 1, pages 3-15, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Dettmann, E. & Becker, C. & Schmeißer, C., 2011. "Distance functions for matching in small samples," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 1942-1960, May.
    19. Gharehgozli, Orkideh, 2021. "An empirical comparison between a regression framework and the Synthetic Control Method," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 70-81.
    20. Chung, Yiyoon, 2015. "Does SNAP serve as a safety net for mothers facing an economic shock? An analysis of Black and White unwed mothers' responses to paternal imprisonment," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 179-192.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social experimentation; vouchers; childcare use; labour force participation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    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:shf:wpaper:2007011. 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: Mike Crabtree (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/desheuk.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.