Do Parents Drink Their Children's Welfare? Intra-Household Allocation of Time Between Market Labour, Domestic Work and Child Care in Russia

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether parental alcohol consumption leads to a reduction of child welfare. To this end, we analyse whether alcohol consumption decreases parents’ time spent looking after children and working. Using the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, we estimate a model of intra-household allocation of time for mono-nuclear families with children under fifteen years of age. We find that fathers’ alcohol consumption has a negative impact on their weekly hours spent doing child care, while no significant effect is observed for mothers’ alcohol consumption.

Keywords: Child Care, Time Allocation, Alcohol Consumption, Labour Supply, Russia

JEL Classification: D1, I1, J13, J22