Mothers Working during Preschool Years and Child Skills: Does Income Compensate?

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Nicoletti, Cheti; Salvanes, Kjell G.; Tominey, Emma
• 署名单位: University of York - UK; University of Essex; IZA Institute Labor Economics; Norwegian School of Economics (NHH); Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/719688
• 发表日期: 2023
• 关键词: maternal employment; gender-gap; time; care; identification; allocation; investments; achievement; TECHNOLOGY; expansions

摘要

Increasing mother's labor supply during a child's preschool years may reduce time investments, yielding a negative direct effect on midchildhood and teenage outcomes. But as mother's work hours increase, income will rise. Can income compensate for the negative effect of hours? Our mediation analysis exploits exogenous variation in both mother's hours and family income. Results suggest a negative, insignificant direct effect from increasing mother's hours on child test scores. However, the positive mediating effect of income creates a positive total effect on test scores (26% of a standard deviation) for a 10-hour increase in mother's weekly hours in preschool years.