Title: Child care provision and maternal employment lessons from Hungary
1Child care provision and maternal employment
lessons from Hungary
- Very preliminary results - please do not quote.
- Ágota ScharleBudapest Institute for Policy
Analysis - 18 September 2009, Vienna
2Outline
- Why increase day care provision-
fertility/employment trade-off- labour supply
effects - Some evidence
- How to implement policy proposal for Hungary
3Why increase day care (1)?
4Why increase day care (2)?
5Why increase day care (3)?
(Mis)match of family policy and gender roles
6Why increase day care (4)?
- Theory (standard labour supply models) and
available evidence that - - availability of day care increases LS
- - some cash tranfers reduce LS
- Apps and Rees (2001), Chevalier and Viitanen
(2002), Jaumotte (2003), Pissarides (2005),
Scharle (2007)
7Why increase day care (5)?
- Shifting public funds from cash to day care has
double effect - - reducing cash transfers increase LS
- - increasing day care increase LS
- but how much?
8Evidence an empirical study
- Focus on mothers' employment rate impact of cash
transfers and day care - No other effects considered
- wellbeing of children, early childhood education
- wellbeing/equal opportunities of mothers
- poverty cf Esping-Andersen (2008)?
- fertility cf Sacerdote and Feyrer (2008)?
- No prediction on evolution in time/adjustment
- No alternative policy options considered
- Based on Köllo and Scharle (2008)?
9Effects vary by education
10 may be smaller for low educated
11Estimation strategy
- Need variation in policy mix
- Cross country panel, aggregate data
- Individual cross section with country
characteristics - LHS mother/non-mother employment rate by
education - RHS
- cash transfers, public day care as of GDP
- control variables fertility, GDP (attitudes),
male unemployment (added worker), pay gap and
female unemployment rate (technological change)?
12Data
- Mother/non mother employment rates from EU LFS
- Family policy variables from Esspros
- Years between 1998 2005
- Constraints
- measureability of institutions, attitudes
- sample size and variance (Scandinavian data)?
- comparability of data (definition of employment)?
- missing variables (private supply of child care,
costs)? - endogeneity welfare model attitudes female
employment, fertility welfare provisions
female employment, education fertility
female employment
13Estimates
- Gender participation gapi
- constant dDi µMi aXi ßYi ?Zi ?i
- Motherhood employment gapie
- constant dDi µMi aXi ßYi(e) ?Zi ?i
- NMS 22 obs, OMS 65 obs (Se - Dk, Fi, No)?
- women aged 20-44
- Individual cross section logit estimate
- 16 countries (incl Cz, Hu, Lv, Lt, Si but no
Scandinavian)? - mothers aged 20-49
- For three education levels primary, secondary,
higher
14Mother/non-mother employment rate
15Probability of mothers' employment
16Summary of results
- Cross-country panel
- Cash (-) /day care () effects as expected, not
all significant in OMS - also in 3 educational groups
- most controls as expected
- Individual cross section
- individual controls as expected
- effect of cash (-) and day care () as expected
in NMS, not significant in OMS
17Policy implication
- Shifting 0.1 GDP from cash to day care
- Primary educated mothersOMS 1,9 point NMS
12,6 point - Secondary educated mothers OMS 1,7 point
NMS 14,2 point - GraduatesOMS 1,3 pointNMS 15,5 point
increase in employment - Effect of cash transfer lt day care
18A policy proposal for Hungary
- High spending on cash transfers
- Long paid maternity leave
- Poor provision of day care for under 3s
- Low employment rate of mothers
- Based on Blaskó et al (2009)?
19Paid maternity leave among longest
Data for 2006-7, OECD Family database
http//www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/26/37864482.pdf
20Maternal employment among lowest
21Constraints of increasing day care
- Municipal responsibility
- 3000 municipalities, avg size among smallest in
EU - Subsidy from central gov covers lt50 of costs
- Low cap on parental contribution
- cf goal of ensuring equal access and high quality
- Political costs
22A possible solution policy redesign
- Convert cash allowance to day-care voucher for
mothers entering employment - Compulsory for mothers and for the municipality
- Allow higher share of parental contribution
- Additional support for low educated
- Remove some administrative hurdles
- Improve quality assurance rating system
- Link central funding to quality
- Reduce barriers for non-profit providers
23A possible solution political costs
- Shift would be almost self-financing but
- Beneficiaries not the middle class
- Attitudes towards gender roles
- Professional organisations quality,
competition - Mistrust in all government plans
- Mistrust in market forces (LD-LS)?
- ? stakeholder analysis, communication
24References
- Apps and Rees (2001) Fertility, female labor
supply and public policy, IZA Discussion Paper
409. - Chevalier and Viitanen (2002) The causality
between female labour force participation and the
availability of childcare. Applied Economics
Letters, 9(14), 915918. - Esping-Andersen (2002) A child centred
social investment strategy. In Esping-Andersn,
Gallie, Hemerijck, Myles (eds) Why we need a new
welfare state. Oxford University Press, pp 26-68
- Jaumotte (2003) Female labour force
participation past trends and main determinants
in OECD countries. Economics Department Working
Papers, No. 376, OECD. - Pissarides, Garibaldi, Olivetti, Petrongolo, and
Wasmer (2005) Women in the labour force how
well is Europe doing?, in Tito Boeri, Daniela
del Boca and Christopher Pissarides (Eds) Women
at Work An Economic Perspective, Oxford
University Press - Sacerdote and Feyrer (2008) Will the Stork
Return to Europe and Japan? Understanding
Fertility within Developed Nations NBER 14114. - Scharle (2007) The effect of welfare provisions
on female labour supply in Central and Eastern
Europe, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis
Research and Practice, Volume 9, Issue 2, 157 -
174 o. - Sleebos (2003) Low Fertility Rates in OECD
Countries Facts and Policy Responses, OECD
DELSA/ELSA/WD/SEM(2003)15
25Thank you.
- Köllo and Scharle (2008) Female labour supply
and child-care provisions in Europe was funded by
WORKCARE Social quality and the changing
relationship between work, care and welfare in
Europe, a Sixth Framework Programme of the
European Commission. - Blaskó et al (2009) Impact analysis of
increasing day care capacities for children aged
1-3 was funded by the Prime Minister's Office of
Hungary - Correspondance agota.scharle_at_budapestinstitute.e
u