2000年-世界发展银行全球_Child_Care_and_Womens_Labor_Force_Participation_in_Romania_36页_1mb

Summary of "Child Care and Women's Labor Force Participation in Romania"

Core Content

This working paper by Monica Fong and Michael Lokshin examines the relationship between child care availability, cost, and quality, and the labor force participation of women in Romania. It highlights how changes in child care pricing and the mother's potential wage impact household decisions regarding child care and maternal employment. The paper also explores the broader implications of child care systems on child development and gender roles in the context of economic transition.

Main Findings

• Sensitivity to Child Care Costs: Both the decision of a mother to work and the choice to use out-of-home care are sensitive to the price of child care. A decrease in child care prices can lead to an increase in the number of working mothers, which can reduce household poverty.

• Impact of Mother's Wage: The potential market wage of the mother significantly influences the decision to use market-based child care and to participate in the labor force.

• Non-Wage Income Influence: The level of household non-wage income has a limited effect on maternal employment and child care demand.

• Educational and Social Benefits: Child care facilities, particularly kindergartens and crèches, provide educational and social benefits for children. About half of the children in these facilities have mothers who do not work, indicating that child care is not only a service for working mothers but also a benefit for children.

• Decline in Public Child Care: Since 1989, the use of state-provided child care facilities has declined, leading to underutilization of kindergartens and crèches. The occupancy rates are lower than previously reported, suggesting a faster decline in enrollment than in the number of facilities.

• Child Care as a Dual Function: Child care in Romania is used both to enable mothers to work and as a benefit for children. For households with more children, the likelihood of using formal child care increases, indicating that child care can be a necessity for larger families.

• Labor Force Participation by Household Size: The labor force participation of mothers decreases as household size increases. In households with two or three members, about 42% of mothers work, while this proportion drops to 32% for five-member households and further declines for larger households.

• Child Care Preferences: Mothers in Romania consider the quality of care and the convenience of operating hours as the most important factors in deciding to place their children in kindergarten. However, 20% of households would still not use formal child care even if it were free.

Key Information

• Data Sources: The study uses data from the Romanian Child Care and Employment Survey (RCCES) and the Romanian Child Care Facilities Survey (RCCFS), conducted by the World Bank in 1999.

• Child Care Pricing: The cost of child care is influenced by the household's income. Households with lower incomes pay a higher percentage of the total fee, while those with higher incomes pay less. The average monthly fee per child in the daily program was 173,300 leis.

• Informal Care: Informal child care is provided by the mother or other household members. In households where other members are employed, more than half of the child care placements go to children of non-working mothers, indicating that informal care is not limited to working mothers.

• Modeling Approach: The paper develops a theoretical model where household members simultaneously decide on child care mode, labor supply, and time allocation. The empirical model includes a discrete choice equation, a labor supply equation, and an equation for children's time in formal care.

• Endogeneity of Child Care Prices: Child care prices are endogenous to household behavior, as they depend on the mother's labor supply decisions. This complicates the estimation of the model, and the authors opt for a simpler method due to the complexity of the structural model.

• Methodology: The model is estimated using the Semi-Parametric Full Information Maximum Likelihood (SPFIML) method, which accounts for possible error correlations across equations.

• Policy Implications: The paper emphasizes the need for further research on the cost and nature of child care benefits, as well as the appropriate roles of the private and public sectors in providing, financing, and regulating child care services for both working and nonworking mothers.

Conclusion

The study provides important insights into the interplay between child care availability and women's labor force participation in Romania. It underscores the significance of child care pricing and quality in shaping household behavior and highlights the potential for policy interventions to improve both maternal employment and child development outcomes.