Stuck in the Middle: Off-Farm Employment and Caregiving Among Middle-Aged Rural Chinese

ABSTRACT

Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2011–12 baseline data, this contribution explores to what extent taking care of grandchildren and frail parents influences rural middle-aged Chinese adults’ off-farm employment. The findings show that, conditional on socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, taking care of grandchildren has a negative effect on rural middle-aged men's and women's off-farm job participation and hours worked. Caregiving for parents does not have the same negative effects on off-farm employment and hours worked. Furthermore, the study finds that annual earnings are also negatively affected by caregiving responsibilities, especially for women and men taking care of grandchildren.     

Parental perception of lunch schemes in Danish kindergartens: A cross-sectional survey

Children’s daily consumption of food in childcare institutions has an impact on their public health nutritional status. The collaboration of parents and employees of kindergartens is important to ensure healthy eating habits among the next generation. Consequently, evaluations of lunch schemes are important to provide a good foundation for enhancing communication between home and institutional settings. The aim of this article is to assess parental satisfaction and identify themes related to parental perceptions of lunch schemes in Danish kindergartens. A survey was developed and distributed in four kindergartens with lunch schemes. A combination of closed and open questions were used to evaluate satisfaction and identify positive and negative aspects of the lunch schemes. Parents of 93 children participated in the study and the response rate was 55%. Eighty-nine percent expressed satisfaction with their children’s lunch scheme. According to parents, the most positive aspects were that lunch schemes serve a variety of food, their ability to prevent neophobia, that children learn that eating is a social occasion, and that the arrangements offer convenience to parents. The negative aspects identified were the lack of communication between the kindergarten childcare institutions and the parents regarding the food. Overall, parents are very satisfied with their children’s lunch schemes; however, the information between institutions and parents could be improved.     

Childcare Costs and Migrant and Local Mothers' Labor Force Participation in Urban China

ABSTRACT

This study empirically analyzes the impact of childcare costs on the labor force participation (LFP) and childcare utilization of migrant and local mothers of preschool-age children in urban China, using data from the 2010 National Dynamic Monitoring Survey of Floating Populations. The estimates show that childcare costs have a strong negative effect on the LFP and childcare utilization of migrant and local mothers. Compared to local mothers, the LFP and childcare utilization rate of migrant mothers are, respectively, more and less sensitive to changes in childcare costs. The analysis indicates that the LFP and childcare choices of migrant mothers are more constrained by the lack of access to affordable childcare than are local mothers in China.     

Does state preschool crowd-out private provision? The impact of universal preschool on the childcare sector in Oklahoma and Georgia

Universal preschool policies introduced in Georgia and Oklahoma offer an opportunity to investigate the impact of government intervention on provision of childcare. Since Georgia used a voucher-like program and Oklahoma utilized its existing public schools, the two states offer a case study of how government provision compares to government subsidization alone. Using a synthetic control group difference-in-difference estimation framework, we examine the effects of universal preschool on childcare providers. In both states there is an increase in the number of formal childcare centers. With the voucher-like program in Georgia, the overall increase in care is partly driven by an increase in the supply of formal childcare in the private sector and partly driven by new publicly-provided preschools. However, there is substantial crowd-out of private consumption of preschool. In Oklahoma, where universal preschool is publicly provided, the increase in the number of childcare providers occurred only in the public sector. The expansion of publicly-provided care seems to be driven largely by movement of employees from private centers to public settings. As such, this case-study comparison suggests that government subsidization through funding was more effective at expanding preschool than government provision.     

Regulation and the cost of childcare

Female labour market choices depend on the availability, affordability and quality of childcare. In this article, we evaluate different regulatory measures and their effect on both the quality and the cost of childcare. First, we analyse data on regulations and costs to estimate the effect of regulatory measures on the cost of childcare. Next, we summarize the existing literature on the effect of regulation on childcare quality. We find that regulation intended to improve quality often focuses on easily observable measures of the care environment that do not necessarily affect the quality of care but that do increase the cost. Thus, we find that the regulatory environment could be improved by eliminating costly measures that do not affect quality of care.     

Gender Power,Fertility, and Family Policy

The birth of children often shifts the balance of power within a family. If family decisions are made according to the welfare function of the spouses, this shift in power might cause a time‐consistency problem. In a model of cooperative family decision‐making, we show that this problem can lead to a systematic downward bias in fertility. By keeping fertility low, spouses mitigate the ex ante undesired shift in the balance of power that results from the presence of children. This provides scope for welfare‐enhancing policy intervention. We discuss to what extent existing family policy measures are suitable for overcoming the bias.     

Public Provision,Commodity Demand,and Hours of Work: An Empirical Analysis

The theoretical analysis of optimal commodity taxation is advanced, but there is only limited empirical evidence to guide commodity tax policies. With this paper, we contribute to this body of literature by empirically examining, using Finnish consumption data, the relation between working hours, consumption demand, and the use of publicly provided day care. When labour income is controlled for in a non‐parametric way, we find that capital income and housing expenses are negatively associated with working hours, whereas the use of childcare is positively correlated with working hours. These results provide arguments for taxing capital income and housing, and for subsidizing day care.     

Childcare availability,household structure,and maternal employment

We estimate the causal effects of childcare availability on the maternal employment rate using prefecture panel data constructed from the Japanese quinquennial census 1990–2010. We depart from previous papers on Japan by controlling for prefecture fixed effects, without which the estimates can be severely biased upward. Contrary to popular belief, childcare availability is uncorrelated with maternal employment when prefecture fixed effects are controlled. Evidence suggests that this is because households shift from using informal childcare provided by grandparents to the accredited childcare service, as more and more households do not live with grandparents. If this change of the household structure did not occur, the growth of childcare availability would have increased the maternal employment rate by two percentage points, which accounts for about 30% of the growth in the maternal employment rate from 1990 to 2010.     

THE DEMAND FOR SCHOOL MEAL SERVICES BY SWISS HOUSEHOLDS*

In this paper we investigate the household demand for childcare during lunchtime at school using a stated preferences approach. Data are collected through phone‐structured interviews to 905 residents with children in the German‐speaking region of Switzerland during 2007. Poisson models with random and fixed effects are used to explore factors affecting the demand. Ordinal probit models are also considered as an alternative to count data models. The results show that price, household income, satisfaction with the current childcare service, family composition, and the area of residence significantly affect the number of weekly services demanded. We estimate that the willingness to pay for childcare during lunchtime is between 7.90 and 11.70 Swiss francs per day and does not depend on household income.     

The Care Economy in Post-Reform China: Feminist Research on Unpaid and Paid Work and Well-Being

ABSTRACT

As China embarked on the path of economic and social reforms, social provisions from the Maoist era were dismantled, and care responsibilities shifted back from the state to the household. Rural–urban migration, a steep decline in fertility, and increasing longevity have led to changes in the age structure of the population both overall and by region. Using seven different surveys, the eleven contributions in this volume study the distributive consequences of post-reform care policies and the impact of unpaid care responsibilities on women’s and men’s opportunities and gender inequality. Overall, reduced care services have created care deficits for disadvantaged groups, including low-income rural elderly and children. The shifted care burden has also limited women’s ability to participate fully in the market economy and has contributed to rising gender inequalities in labor force participation, off-farm employment, earnings, pensions, and mental health outcomes.