Money for Nothing? Universal Child Care and Maternal Employment

By Tarjei Havnes, Magne Mogstad. Social Science Research Network, 2011

462 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The strong correlation between child care and maternal employment rates has led previous research to conclude that affordable and readily available child care is a driving force both of cross-country differences in maternal employment and of its rapid growth over the last decades. We analyze a staged expansion of subsidized child care in Norway. Our precise and robust difference-in-differences estimates reveal that there is little, if any, causal effect of subsidized child care on maternal employment, despite a strong correlation. Instead of increasing mothers' labor supply, the new subsidized child care mostly crowds out informal child care arrangements, suggesting a significant net cost of the child care subsidies.

Subfields: Education, Gender Studies, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/280148c9b44cc14c5bc81e2672562b4f00bcaa26

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Education

1. P. Haan
2. W. Van Lancker
3. E. Pavolini
4. Katharina Wrohlich
5. Nadia Steiber
6. E. Jongen
7. Barbara Haas
8. Paul Muller

In Gender Studies

1. W. Van Lancker
2. P. Haan
3. J. Geyer
4. Katharina Wrohlich
5. Nadia Steiber
6. E. Jongen
7. Barbara Haas
8. Paul Muller

In Sociology and Political Science

1. W. Van Lancker
2. E. Pavolini
3. Katharina Wrohlich
4. P. Haan
5. Nadia Steiber
6. E. Jongen
7. Barbara Haas
8. Paul Muller

Citations in the corpus

• The Matthew effect in childcare use: a matter of policies or preferences? (2018, background): “Some studies have shown that the creation of additional childcare places mainly crowds out informal arrangements and in particular benefits mothers who are already employed (e.g., Havnes and Mogstad 2011).”
• Children and the Remaining Gender Gaps in the Labor Market (2020, unknown): “…surprisingly, in countries with relatively low childcare costs (and high female labor force 29 participation) at baseline such as Norway and France, expansions in subsidized public childcare were found to have little impact on maternal employment (Havnes and Mogstad, 2011; Givord and Marbot, 2015).”
• Children of a (Policy) Revolution: The Introduction of Universal Child Care and Its Effect on Fertility (2016, unknown): “By choosing this setting, we follow Havnes and Mogstad (2011a) who use a very similar identification strategy for analyzing the effects of the introduction of universal child care on maternal employment in Norway.”
• Advances in explaining women's employment patterns (2012, background): “One could argue, however, that causality has been reverse, with high numbers of (already) gainfully employed women having created political pressure for expanding subsidised public childcare (Huber & Stephens 2000; Pfau-Effinger 2000; Lundin et al. 2008; Havnes & Mogstad 2009).”
• The effects of family policy on maternal labor supply: Combining evidence from a structural model and a quasi-experimental approach (2015, background): “…approaches and identify the effect of childcare policy on regional variation in the availability or expansion of child care (see, among others, Havnes and Mogstad (2011) for Norway, Simonsen (2010) for Denmark, Berlinski and Galiani (2007) for Argentina, Cascio (2009) for the U.S., Baker et…”
• Childcare subsidies and labour supply - Evidence from a large Dutch reform (2015, background): “, 2008) and Norway (Havnes and Mogstad, 2011a) that find very small effects, and studies for Canada (Baker et al.”
• Is Universal Child Care Leveling the Playing Field? (2015, unknown): “To estimate the effect of the expansion of subsidized child care on children’s outcomes we follow Havnes and Mogstad (2011b) in applying a DiD approach, exploiting that the supply shocks to subsidized child care were larger in some areas than others.”