With Strings Attached: Grandparent-Provided Child Care and Female Labor Market Outcomes

49 Pages Posted: 10 Dec 2013

See all articles by Eva Garcia-Moran

Eva Garcia-Moran

Bocconi University

Zoe Kuehn

Universidad Autonoma de Madrid

Date Written: December 2013

Abstract

Grandparents are regular providers of free child care. Similar to other forms of child care, availability of grandparent-provided child care affects fertility and labor force participation of women positively. However, grandparent-provided child care requires residing close to parents or in-laws which may simply costly spatial restrictions. We find that mothers residing close to parents or in-laws have lower wages and that the probability of having to commute increases if relatives provide child care. We build a model of residence choice, fertility, and female labor force participation that can account for the observed relationships. We simulate our model to analyze how women's decisions would change if the availability of grandparent-provided child care or family policies were altered. We find that if child care subsidies were raised to the Swedish level, fertility and mothers' labor force participation would increase, while mobility would remain unchanged. The absence of grandparents, on the other hand, would increase mobility, while it would only have limited negative effects on aggregate fertility and labor force participation.

Keywords: grandparent-provided child care, fertility, labor force participation, spatial restrictions, regional labor markets

JEL Classification: J13, J61, H42, R23

Suggested Citation

Garcia-Moran, Eva and Kuehn, Zoe, With Strings Attached: Grandparent-Provided Child Care and Female Labor Market Outcomes (December 2013). SOEPpaper No. 610, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2365716 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2365716

Eva Garcia-Moran (Contact Author)

Bocconi University ( email )

Via Sarfatti, 25
Milan, MI 20136
Italy

Zoe Kuehn

Universidad Autonoma de Madrid ( email )

Campus de Cantoblanco
Madrid, Madrid 28049
Spain

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