cite: Hardoy2015
author: Hardoy, I., & Schøne, P.
year: 2015
title: "Enticing even higher female labor supply: The impact of cheaper day care"
publisher: Review of Economics of the Household
uri: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-013-9215-8
pubtype: article
discipline: economics

country: Norway
period: 1995-2006
maxlength: 48
targeting: implicit
group: mothers
data: Norwegian Labor and Welfare Service (NAV); Register for Employers and Employees

design: quasi-experimental
method: triple-difference approach
sample: 200_530
unit: individual
representativeness: national
causal: 1 # 0 correlation / 1 causal

theory:
limitations: simultaneous capacity extension may bias results
observation:
  - intervention: subsidy (childcare)
    institutional: 1
    structural: 1
    agency: 0
    inequality: gender; education; migration
    type: 1 # 0 vertical / 1 horizontal
    indicator: 0 # 0 absolute / 1 relative
    measures: employment; hours worked
    findings: child care price reduction increased female labour supply (about 5pct); no impact on mothers already participating in labour market; stronger impact on low-education mothers, low-income households; no significant impact on immigrant mothers
    channels: day care expenditure larger part of low-income/-education households creating larger impact; may also be due to average lower employment rates for those households
    direction: 1 # -1 neg / 0 none / 1 pos
    significance: 2 # 0 nsg / 1 msg / 2 sg

notes:
annotation: |
  A study on the labour force impacts for women of reductions in child care costs in Norway.
  It finds that overall the reductions in child care cost increased the female labour supply in the country (by about 5 per cent),
  while there were no significant impacts on mothers which already participated in the labour market.
  It also finds some internal heterogeneity, with the impact being strongest for low-education mothers and low-income households,
  a finding the authors expected due to day care expenditure representing a larger part of those households' budgets thus creating a larger impact.
  Though it may alternatively also be generated by the lower average pre-intervention employment rate for those households.
  Interestingly when disaggregating by native and immigrant mothers there is only a significant impact on native mothers,
  though the authors do not form an inference on why this difference would be.
  A limitation of the study is that there was a simultaneous child care capacity increase in the country,
  which may bias the labour market results due to being affected by both the cost reduction and the capacity increase.