"In most families today, childcare remains divided unequally between fathers and mothers. Scholars argue that persistence of the gendered division of childcare is due to multiple causes, including ...values about gender and family, disparities in paid work, class, and social context. It is likely that all of these factors interact, but to date researchers have not explored such interactions. To address this gap, we analyze nationally representative time-use data from Australia, Denmark, France, and Italy. These countries have different employment patterns, social and family policies, and cultural attitudes toward parenting and gender equality. Using data from matched married couples, we conduct a cross-national study of mothers' and fathers' relative time in childcare, divided along dimensions of task (i.e., routine versus non-routine activities) and co-presence (i.e., caring for children together as a couple versus caring solo). Results show that mothers' and fathers' work arrangements and education relate modestly to shares of childcare, and this relationship differs across countries. We find cross-national variation in whether more equal shares result from the behavior of mothers, fathers, or both spouses. Results illustrate the relevance of social context in accentuating or minimizing the impact of individual- and household-level characteristics." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch; Querschnitt. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1999 bis 2008.
Childcare arrangements are key in women's ability to juggle motherhood and work outside the home. As such the study of access to childcare and its use is of great policy relevance. We focus on a ...particular kind of informal childcare, the one provided by grandparents. Empirically, assessing the effect of grandparental childcare is not an easy task due to unobserved preferences. In light of the potential outcome framework, we interpret the biases resulting from unobserved preferences as arising from the non-compliance of mothers to the availability of grandparents and from preferences of grandparents for activities other than childcare. Using an instrumental variable approach on Italian data, we find that the effect of grandparental childcare on mothers' labour supply is positive, statistically significant and economically relevant. The effect is stronger for less educated mothers, with young children and living in northern and central Italy.
After the introduction of the Law on Childcare in 2005, childcare subsidies in the Netherlands became much more generous. Public spending on childcare increased from 1 to 3 billion euro over the ...period 2004–2009. Using a differences-in-differences strategy we find that, despite the substantial budgetary outlay, this reform had only a modest impact on employment. Furthermore, the rather small effects we find are likely confounded by a coincident increase in the EITC for parents with young children of 0.6 billion euro, which presumably also served to increase the labour supply of the group. The joint reform increased the maternal employment rate by 2.3 percentage points (3.0%) and maternal hours worked by 1.1h per week (6.2%). The results further suggest that the reform slightly reduced hours worked by fathers.
•Using DD we study the effect of a recent childcare reform on female labour supply.•The effect on the participation rate is +3.0%, and on hours worked +6.2%.•The reform was rather costly, 90 thousand euro per additional FTE.
Grandparents are becoming an increasingly important source of childcare. However, caring for grandchildren may have negative health consequences particularly for grandparents with intensive ...commitments such as those with primary care responsibilities. To date most studies on this issue are based on cross-sectional data and do not take earlier life circumstances into account. Thus, it is not known whether (or to what extent) the relationship between grandparental childcare and health is due to cumulative advantage or disadvantage throughout the lifecourse or to the impact of grandchild care per se.
Employing data from waves 1–3 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe we investigated the longitudinal relationship between grandparental childcare (i.e. intensive and non-intensive) and health once cumulative histories of advantage or disadvantage are taken into account. We used latent class analysis to categorise respondents according to childhood socio-economic and health conditions drawing on life history information. Experiences in adulthood (e.g. periods of ill health) were also captured. We created a latent continuous physical health variable based on self- and observer-measured indicators. OLS regression was used to explore the association between physical health at wave 2 and grandparental childcare at baseline, controlling for conditions in childhood and adulthood, and for health and socio-economic characteristics.
We found a positive longitudinal association between grandchild care and health even after earlier life health and socio-economic conditions were taken into account. However, this significant association was found only for grandmothers, and not grandfathers. Our results suggesting the health benefits of grandchild care are important given the widespread provision of grandparental childcare in Europe. However, further research on underlying mechanisms and causal pathways between grandchild care and grandparent health, as well as on gender differences in the pattern of association, is needed.
•Early and later life health and socio-economic circumstances are associated with grandparenting.•Grandmothers providing childcare experience better physical health.•Grandparenting effect on health remains significant even in a life-course approach.
Grandparents play an important role in looking after grandchildren, although intensive grandparental childcare varies considerably across Europe. Few studies have explicitly investigated the extent ...to which such cross-national variations are associated with national level differences in individual demographic and socio-economic distributions along with contextual-structural and cultural factors (e.g., variations in female labor force participation, childcare provision, and cultural attitudes).
We used multilevel models to examine associations between intensive grandparental childcare and contextual-structural and cultural factors, after controlling for grandparent, parent, and child characteristics using nationally representative data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe.
Even controlling for cross-national differences in demographic and socio-economic distributions, contextual-structural factors play an important role in explaining grandparental childcare variations in Europe. In particular, higher levels of intensive grandparental childcare are found in countries with low labor force participation among younger and older women, and low formal childcare provision, where mothers in paid work largely rely on grandparental support on an almost daily basis.
Encouraging older women to remain in paid work is likely to have an impact on grandchild care which in turn may affect mothers' employment, particularly in Southern European countries where there is little formal childcare.
Abstract
The nature and scale of the shocks to the demand for, and the supply of, home childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic provide a unique opportunity to increase our understanding of the ...division of home labour and the determinants of specialization within the household. We collected real-time data on daily lives to document the impact of measures to control COVID-19 on UK families with children under the age of 12. We document that these families have been doing the equivalent of a working week in childcare, with mothers bearing most of the burden. The additional hours of childcare done by women are less sensitive to their employment than they are for men, leaving many women juggling work and (a lot more) childcare, with likely adverse effects on their mental health and future careers. However, some households, those in which men have not been working, have taken greater steps towards an equal allocation, offering the prospect of sharing the burden of childcare more equally in the future.
All families in Finland have the freedom to choose between subsidized home care, universal public childcare, and private childcare. We study the impact of the introduction of private childcare ...subsidies in Finland. Private childcare subsidies have causal effects on take-up but no impact on home care or employment among women with small children. Instead, private services seem to crowd out public childcare. Private services have a socioeconomic gradient by mother’s education that steepens when the subsidy increases. Families’ preferences between home care, public childcare, and private childcare do not explain the result.
Access to affordable childcare is crucial to mothers’ employment. Yet, childcare costs and access to Head Start, childcare subsidies, and state-funded preschool vary dramatically across U.S. states. ...Using data from the 2016 American Community Survey five-year estimates, we apply hierarchical logistic regression models to show mothers are more likely to work in states with inexpensive childcare, higher Head Start enrollment and childcare subsidy participation, and increased availability of state-funded preschool. Childcare subsidy access is associated with higher maternal employment amongst those with lower levels of educational attainment, whereas state-funded preschool is associated with higher employment primarily among the college educated. Additionally, our analysis revealed that Head Start has a stronger association with maternal employment in states where childcare costs are high, reducing the negative relationship of employment with expensive childcare. As national discussions continue to center on the importance of childcare, our research adds evidence that public programs support maternal employment through reducing out-of-pocket childcare costs.
•It is pertinent to question whether economic free market models of childcare markets are legally and ethically appropriate policy and law in democratic countries.•Childcare markets weaken the legal ...relationships of family and the workforce to governments.•‘Fee-free’ childcare pandemic responses in Australia are shown to be policy rhetoric not matched by law.•Childcare markets lead governments to uphold the economic rights of stakeholders over their social rights•Adopting principles from a ‘social market’ approach would create more ethical and legal childcare markets.
From 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic has highlighted the crucial role of childcare in the lives of families and children, as well as its economic importance to nation states. In Australia, pandemic effects threatened the childcare sector’s viability, leading to a period of ‘fee free’ childcare policy. After decades of rigorous marketisation, this unprecedented ‘fee free’ period dispelled the state illusion that market models are unmovable and was robustly supported by families and various other stakeholders. Yet, ‘fee-free childcare’ lasted only three months and childcare was the first industry to be removed from Commonwealth business relief payments. Drawing on these recent happenings, we revisit the question of whether economic free market models of childcare are legally and ethically appropriate policy and law in democratic countries that are signatories of major human rights conventions. To do this, we present and apply an interdisciplinary critical policy and legal analytical lens to the Australian COVID-19 childcare policy context, including the legislative solutions presented, their implementation and implications. To conclude, we posit alternative childcare policy approaches that we argue would orient childcare services within stronger legal and ethical frameworks.
In this paper, we exploit pension reform-induced changes in retirement eligibility requirements to assess the role of grandparental childcare availability in the labor force participation of women ...with children under 15. Our analysis shows that, among the women studied, those whose own mothers are retirement eligible have a 11% higher probability of being in the labor force than those whose mothers are ineligible. The pension eligibility of maternal grandfathers and paternal grandparents, however, has no significant effect on the women’s labor force participation. We also demonstrate that the eligibility of maternal grandmothers mainly captures the effect of their availability for childcare. Hence, pension reforms, by potentially robbing households of an important source of flexible, low-cost childcare, could have unintended negative consequences for the employment rates of women with young children.
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