Young children and women's labour force participation in Russia, 1992–20041

We document the changing labour force participation patterns of women with young children in Russia during 1992–2004. In this period maternity leave benefits became less generous, and childcare was privatized and became increasingly scarce. Using nationally representative household survey data it is shown that in 1992, there was essentially no association between the probability of a woman being a labour force participant and her having a child under age 3. However, by 2004, having children under age 3 had become associated with significantly reduced participation and employment probabilities, conditional on other observable characteristics of women and their households, and local factors. Several potential explanations for these findings are discussed.