After-school care allows parents to share work more equally

While more and more women with children work in OECD countries, less than a half of them have a full-time position, which has negative consequences on future career opportunities. In the public debate, after-school child care facilities are seen as one key element to help women with children to increase their working hours. Yet, it is still unclear whether the availability of after-school care really stimulates the employment of mothers. Similarly, it is unknown how fathers’ employment reacts to an increase in the provision of supplementary school care. A new IZA discussion paper by Christina Felfe, Michael Lechner and Petra Thiemann analyzes whether after-school care provision promotes mothers’ employment and balances the allocation of paid work among parents of schoolchildren. The authors address this question by analyzing differences in cantonal (state) regulations of after-school care provision in Switzerland. In particular, they analyze confined regions along cantonal borders with different regulations on each side of the border. The authors show a positive impact of after-school care provision on mothers’ full-time employment, but a negative impact on fathers’ full-time employment. They conclude that the supply of after-school care fosters a convergence of parental working hours.