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.