An Empirical Assessment of the Drivers of Formal and Informal Childcare Demand in European Countries

Childcare; Instrumental variable; Mothers’ labour supply; Developmental and Educational Psychology; Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous); Sociology and Political Science; Social Sciences (all); General Social Sciences

Abstract :

[en] How does the mother’s labour supply affect the household’s demand for childcare? And thus are formal and informal childcare substitutable? In this paper, we address these two questions using micro-data for 14 European countries observed over the period between 2010 and 2017. Relying on a Control Function Approach to account for the endogeneity between childcare and the mothers’ labour supply, we identify different factors affecting the demand for formal and informal childcare. The results show that the mother’s labour supply is a key element in understanding the demand for childcare and suggest that the more the mother participates in the labour market, the higher the household’s demand for childcare services. Moreover, our results support the substitutability hypothesis between formal and informal childcare. Policymakers aiming to promote mothers’ employment should increase the availability of formal childcare services, as this will increase labour supply by mothers and reduce the use of informal care arrangements.

Disciplines :

Economic systems & public economics

Author, co-author :

Thil, Laurène ; HIVA & KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Lawson, Laté A.; BETA, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France

Lefebvre, Mathieu ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Ecole de Gestion de l'Université de Liège ; Aix Marseille University, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France

Language :

English

Title :

An Empirical Assessment of the Drivers of Formal and Informal Childcare Demand in European Countries

Publication date :

November 2023

Journal title :

Social Indicators Research

ISSN :

0303-8300

eISSN :

1573-0921

Publisher :

Springer Science and Business Media B.V.

Volume :

170

Issue :

Pages :

581 - 608

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11205-023-03198-3.pdf

Funders :

ANR - Agence Nationale de la Recherche

Funding text :

The authors would like to thank Angela Greulich, Bertrand Koebel and Holger Stichnoth for their valuable comments. This work was supported by the French National Research Agency Grant ANR-17-EURE-0020, and by the Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University - A*MIDEX. The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to this research.

Available on ORBi :

since 12 January 2024

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