Grandparents' Childcare and Female Labor Force Participation

27 Pages Posted: 10 Mar 2012

See all articles by Josefina Posadas

Josefina Posadas

World Bank

Marian Vidal-Fernandez

IZA - Institute for the Study of Labor; The University of Sydney - School of Economics

Abstract

In the U.S., grandparents look after one in five preschool children of employed women. Does this source of informal childcare increase female labor force participation and if so, up to what extent? The main challenge to answer this question is that a positive relationship between grandparents’ childcare and female labor force participation might not be causal. We use the maternal grandmother’s death as an instrument of grandparents’ childcare to measure the effect of grandparents’ childcare on maternal labor force participation (MLFP). We compare OLS and IV estimates and find that grandparents’ childcare increases MLFP by 15 percentage points on average. We argue that most of the effect is driven by families from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Keywords: maternal labor force participation, grandparents, childcare, NLSY

JEL Classification: J2, I3

Suggested Citation

Posadas, Josefina and Vidal-Fernandez, Marian and Vidal-Fernandez, Marian, Grandparents' Childcare and Female Labor Force Participation. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6398, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2019450 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2019450

Josefina Posadas (Contact Author)

World Bank ( email )

1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
United States

Marian Vidal-Fernandez

The University of Sydney - School of Economics ( email )

Rm 370 Merewether (H04)
The University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW 2006 2008
Australia

IZA - Institute for the Study of Labor ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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