The current COVID-19 crisis, with its associated school and daycare closures as well as social-distancing requirements, has the potential to magnify gender differences both in terms of childcare ...arrangements within the household and at work. We use data from a nationally representative sample of the United States from the Understanding Coronavirus in America tracking survey to understand gender differences within households on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. We study how fathers and mothers are coping with this crisis in terms of childcare provision, employment, working arrangements, and psychological distress levels. We find that women have carried a heavier load than men in the provision of childcare during the COVID-19 crisis, even while still working. Mothers’ current working situations appear to have a limited influence on their provision of childcare. This division of childcare is, however, associated with a reduction in working hours and an increased probability of transitioning out of employment for working mothers. Finally, we observe a small but new gap in psychological distress that emerged between mothers and women without school-age children in the household in early April. This new gap appears to be driven by higher levels of psychological distress reported by mothers of elementary school-age and younger children.
Championing Child Care Cohen, Sally; Dodd, Senator Christopher; Dodd, Sen Christopher
2001., 20011025, 2001, 2001-12-31
eBook
Why has child care legislation developed along its present course? How did the political players influence lawmakers? What do the politics of child care legislation over the past thirty years ...indicate for the future? Based on more than one hundred interviews with legislators and executive branch officials, archival research, and secondary sources, this book looks at the politics behind child care legislation, rather than analyzing child care as a work and family issue. Identifying key junctures at which major child care bills were introduced and debated (1971, 1990, and 1996), Sally Cohen examines the politics surrounding each of these events and identifies the political structures and negotiations that evolved in the intervening years. In addition, Cohen looks at the impact the election of President Clinton has had on child care policymaking, and how child care legislation became part of other issues, including welfare reform, crime prevention, school readiness, and tax policy revisions.
As a reaction to the increased demands, daycare social work is establishing itself nationwide, expanding the range of services offered by daycare centers. Christina Wiethüchter explores the question ...to what extent this new professional field holds possibilities for strengthening child protection. Based on theoretical considerations about social work and child protection in daycare centers, interviews with daycare social workers are analyzed. Potentials on the levels of the children, the families, the daycare team, the daycare management and the network partners are identified. Particular potential is shown in the resource of daycare center social work to network all levels and to initiate, accompany and secure processes important for child protection.
By the early 21st century, most high-income countries have put into effect a host of generous and virtually gender-neutral parental leave policies and family benefits, with the multiple goals of ...gender equity, higher fertility, and child development. What have been the effects? Proponents typically emphasize the contribution of family policies to the goals of gender equity and child development, enabling women to combine careers and motherhood, and altering social norms regarding gender roles. Opponents often warn that family policies may become a long-term hindrance to women's careers because of the loss of work experience and the higher costs to employers that hire women of childbearing age. We draw lessons from existing work and our own analysis on the effects of parental leave and other interventions aimed at aiding families. We present country- and micro-level evidence on the effects of family policy on gender outcomes, focusing on female employment, gender gaps in earnings, and fertility. Most estimates range from negligible to a small positive impact. But the verdict is far more positive for the beneficial impact of spending on early education and child care.
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Child-care availability and fertility in Norway Rindfuss, Ronald R; Guilkey, David K; Morgan, S. Philip ...
Population and development review,
December 2010, Volume:
36, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The child-care and fertility hypothesis has been in the literature for a long time and is straightforward: As child care becomes more available, affordable, and acceptable, the antinatalist effects ...of increased female educational attainment and work opportunities decrease. As an increasing number of countries express concern about low fertility, the child-care and fertility hypothesis takes on increased importance. Yet data and statistical limitations have heretofore limited empirical tests of the hypothesis. Using rich longitudinal data and appropriate statistical methodology, we show that increased availability of child care increases completed fertility. Moreover, this positive effect of child-care availability is found at every parity transition. We discuss the generalizability of these results to other settings and their broader importance for understanding variation and trends in low fertility.
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Despite evidence from other regions, researchers and policy-makers remain skeptical that women's disproportionate childcare responsibilities act as a significant barrier to women's economic ...empowerment in Africa. This randomized control trial study in an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, demonstrates that limited access to affordable early childcare inhibits poor urban women's participation in paid work. Women who were offered vouchers for subsidized early childcare were, on average, 8.5 percentage points more likely to be employed than those who were not given vouchers. Most of these employment gains were realized by married mothers. Single mothers, in contrast, benefited by significantly reducing the time spent working without any loss to their earnings by shifting to jobs with more regular hours. The effects on other measures of women's economic empowerment were mixed. With the exception of children's health care, access to subsidized day care did not increase women's participation in other important household decisions. In addition, contrary to concerns that reducing the costs of childcare may elevate women's desire for more children, we find no effect on women's fertility intentions. These findings demonstrate that the impact of subsidized childcare differs by marital status and across outcomes. Nonetheless, in poor urban Africa, as elsewhere, failure to address women's childcare needs undermines efforts to promote women's economic empowerment.
This article discusses the diversity of family policy models in 28 OECD countries in terms of the balance between their different objectives and the mix of instruments adopted to implement the ...policies. Cross-country policy differences are investigated by applying a principal component analysis to comprehensive country-level data from the OECD Family Database covering variables such as parental leave conditions, childcare service provision, and financial support to families. The results find persistent differences in the family policy patterns embedded in different contexts of work-family "outcomes." Country classifications of family policy packages only partially corroborate categorizations in earlier studies, owing to considerable within-group heterogeneity and the presence of group outliers. The Nordic countries outdistance the others with comprehensive support to working parents with very young children. Anglo-Saxon countries provide much less support for working parents with very young children, and financial support is targeted on low-income and large families and focuses on preschool and early elementary education. Continental and Eastern European countries form a more heterogeneous group, while the support received by families in Southern Europe and in Asian countries is much lower in all its dimensions.
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8.
Money for nothing? Havnes, Tarjei; Mogstad, Magne
Journal of public economics,
12/2011, Volume:
95, Issue:
11/12
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
"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 the introduction of subsidized, universally accessible child care in Norway. Our precise and robust difference-in-differences estimates reveal that there is little, if any, causal effect of 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." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch-quantitativ; empirisch; Längsschnitt; deskriptive Studie. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1972 bis 1996.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Despite debate regarding the magnitude of the impact, immigrant inflows are generally understood to depress wages and increase employment in immigrant-intensive sectors. In light of the ...overrepresentation of the foreign-born in the childcare industry, this article examines whether college-educated native women respond to immigrant-induced lower cost and potentially more convenient childcare options with increased fertility. An analysis of U.S. Census data between 1980 and 2000 suggests that immigrant inflows are indeed associated with native women's increased likelihoods of having a baby, and responses are strongest among women who are most likely to consider childcare costs when making fertility decisions—namely, married women and women with a graduate degree. Given that native women also respond to immigrant inflows by working long hours, this article concludes with an analysis of the types of women who have stronger fertility responses versus labor supply responses to immigration.
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Smack Down at the YMCA Ruprecht, Isabelle P; Olsen, Paul E
Journal of critical incidents,
12/2023, Volume:
16
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This critical incident was prepared by the authors and is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion. The views represented here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the ...views of the Society for Case Research. The views are based on professional judgment. Copyright c 2023 by the Society for Case Research and the authors. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without the written permission of the Society for Case Research.
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