To Grandmother’s House We Go: Childcare Time Transfers and Female Labor Mobility
To Grandmother’s House We Go: Childcare Time Transfers and Female Labor Mobility
Author: Garrett Anstreicher
Author: Joanna Venator
Abstract: Women in the United States frequently rely on childcare from extended family but can only do so if they live in the same location as them. This paper studies how child care costs, the location of extended family, and fertility events influence both the labor force attachment and labor mobility of women in the United States. We begin by empirically documenting strong patterns of women returning to their home locations in anticipation of fertility events, indicating that the desire for intergenerational time transfers is an important motivator of home migration. Moreover, women who reside in their parent’s location experience a substantial long-run reduction in their child earnings penalty. Next, we build a dynamic model of labor force participation and migration to assess the incidence of counterfactual scenarios and childcare policies. We find that childcare subsidies increase lifetime earnings and labor mobility for women, with particularly strong effects for women who are ever single mothers and Blacks. Ignoring migration can understate the welfare benefits of these policies by a meaningful extent.
Pages: 60
Date Added: 9/22/2022, 10:22:52 AM
Reading Notes:
Objective: To understand how childcare costs constrain the labor force participation and labor mobility of mothers by exploring location choices relative to grandparents location and childcare costs
Importance: Documenting a new mechanism contributing to the child penalty: decreased job mobility as a result of location-specific childcare access. Substitution between formal & informal care does not have a neutral effect on women's labor outcomes if it constricts labor market access
Data & Key Variables: 2005-2017 ACS - women aged 22-35. One-year migration history & fertility/age of children
PSID births 1985 onwards, missing less than 8 period in 5 years pre-birth & 10 years post-birth span.
2000 onwards for model estimation - 909 women and 8,354 person-year observations
Methodology: Event study - near vs far grandma, high vs low child care costs, married vs unmarried
Dynamic discrete choice model that incorporates lfp and migration decisions of women
Results: Women who have a kid <1 year old are more likely to migrate to their home state and less likely to move to a high childcare cost state that isn't their home state.
The child penalty is smaller for women living in the same state as her parents and in lower childcare cost states
Childcare subsidies would increase lifetime earnings of women from increased labor mobility, especially for single mothers and Black mothers
Key Table/Figure: