The effect of teacher strikes on parents

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jaume, David; Willen, Alexander
• 署名单位: Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102679
• 发表日期: 2021
• 关键词: Teacher strikes; Teacher industrial action; Parental labor supply; School disruptions

摘要

Teacher industrial action is a leading cause of temporary school closures around the globe. These events leave millions of families struggling with disrupted childcare arrangements and may have important consequences for the labor market outcomes of parents. This paper presents the first detailed analysis on the topic, exploiting recently digitalized data on teacher strikes in Argentina in a dose-response triple difference framework. Mothers respond to teacher strikes by dropping out of the labor force and this translates into a large reduction in earnings: 10 days of strike-induced school closures during the previous year reduces monthly labor earnings by almost 3 percent relative to the mean. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that this amounts to an aggregate loss of more than $92 million dollars in Argentina each year. With respect to men, only fathers with lower predicted earnings than their spouses experience adverse labor market effects. Access to alternative care options mute some of the effects of strike-induced school disruptions on parental labor market outcomes.