Preschool Availability and Women’s Employment : Evidence from Indonesia

While a large body of literature has documented positive impacts of institutional childcare on maternal labor supply, thinner evidence is available on whether childcare can also nudge women into better jobs in developing countries. We evaluate the impact of public preschool expansion in Indonesia on...

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Main Authors:	Halim, Daniel, Johnson, Hillary C., Perova, Elizaveta
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	The University of Chicago Press 2021
Subjects:	FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION PRESCHOOL EDUCATION MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT CHILDCARE
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35394

id	okr-10986-35394
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-353942021-07-19T16:42:29Z Preschool Availability and Women’s Employment : Evidence from Indonesia Halim, Daniel Johnson, Hillary C. Perova, Elizaveta FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION PRESCHOOL EDUCATION MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT CHILDCARE While a large body of literature has documented positive impacts of institutional childcare on maternal labor supply, thinner evidence is available on whether childcare can also nudge women into better jobs in developing countries. We evaluate the impact of public preschool expansion in Indonesia on women’s labor supply and characteristics linked to the quality of their employment, including employment types, earnings, and hours. We rely on a triple difference approach exploiting variations in preschool availability over time and across districts, as well as preschool-age-eligibility cutoffs, in a panel dataset spanning over 20 years. We find strong positive impacts on employment—an additional public preschool per 1,000 children in the district increases women’s work participation by 9.1 percent. However, it is primarily driven by an increase in unpaid family work, typically in household farms or businesses. We do not find impacts on earnings or hours of work. These findings are likely explained by the modality of preschools in Indonesia: operating for only 3 hours per day, they are unlikely to enable women to secure a paid job outside the home with longer time commitments. 2021-04-07T18:48:54Z 2021-04-07T18:48:54Z 2021-04 Journal Article Economic Development and Cultural Change http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35394 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank The University of Chicago Press Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION PRESCHOOL EDUCATION MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT CHILDCARE
spellingShingle	FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION PRESCHOOL EDUCATION MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT CHILDCARE Halim, Daniel Johnson, Hillary C. Perova, Elizaveta Preschool Availability and Women’s Employment : Evidence from Indonesia
description	While a large body of literature has documented positive impacts of institutional childcare on maternal labor supply, thinner evidence is available on whether childcare can also nudge women into better jobs in developing countries. We evaluate the impact of public preschool expansion in Indonesia on women’s labor supply and characteristics linked to the quality of their employment, including employment types, earnings, and hours. We rely on a triple difference approach exploiting variations in preschool availability over time and across districts, as well as preschool-age-eligibility cutoffs, in a panel dataset spanning over 20 years. We find strong positive impacts on employment—an additional public preschool per 1,000 children in the district increases women’s work participation by 9.1 percent. However, it is primarily driven by an increase in unpaid family work, typically in household farms or businesses. We do not find impacts on earnings or hours of work. These findings are likely explained by the modality of preschools in Indonesia: operating for only 3 hours per day, they are unlikely to enable women to secure a paid job outside the home with longer time commitments.
format	Journal Article
author	Halim, Daniel Johnson, Hillary C. Perova, Elizaveta
author_facet	Halim, Daniel Johnson, Hillary C. Perova, Elizaveta
author_sort	Halim, Daniel
title	Preschool Availability and Women’s Employment : Evidence from Indonesia
title_short	Preschool Availability and Women’s Employment : Evidence from Indonesia
title_full	Preschool Availability and Women’s Employment : Evidence from Indonesia
title_fullStr	Preschool Availability and Women’s Employment : Evidence from Indonesia
title_full_unstemmed	Preschool Availability and Women’s Employment : Evidence from Indonesia
title_sort	preschool availability and women’s employment : evidence from indonesia
publisher	The University of Chicago Press
publishDate	2021
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35394
_version_	1764482941770006528

Preschool Availability and Women’s Employment : Evidence from Indonesia

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