School schedules and mothers’ employment: evidence from an education reform
Date
2022
Type:
Article
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Abstract
Women’s employment plays an important role in household well-being, and among
mothers, lack of child care is one of the main reasons for not working and not seeking
employment. We investigate the effect of a reform that lengthened school schedules from
half to full days in Chile—providing childcare for school aged children—on different
maternal employment outcomes. Using a panel of 2814 mothers over a 7-year period, we
find evidence of important positive causal effects of access to full-day schools on mother’s
labor force participation, employment, weekly hours worked, and months worked during
the year. We also find that lower-education and married mothers benefit most from the
policy. Findings suggest that alleviating childcare needs can promote women’s attachment
to the labor force, increase household incomes and alleviate poverty and inequality
Description
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Citation
Berthelon, M., Kruger, D. & Oyarzún, M. School schedules and mothers’ employment: evidence from an education reform. Rev Econ Household (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-022-09599-6
Keywords
Full day schooling, School schedules, Female employment and labor force participation, Education reform, Latin America, Chile