The impact of childcare availability on maternal employment: evidence from Czech municipalities

0580773 - NHU-C 2024 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Kalíšková, Klára - Münich, Daniel
The impact of childcare availability on maternal employment: evidence from Czech municipalities.
PLoS ONE. Roč. 18, č. 7 (2023), č. článku e0288987. ISSN 1932-6203. E-ISSN 1932-6203
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT(CZ) LX22NPO5101
Institutional support: Cooperatio-COOP
Keywords : childcare availability * maternal employment * Czech municipalities
OECD category: Applied Economics, Econometrics
Impact factor: 3.7, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Open access
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288987

This study presents empirical estimates of the effects of local public kindergarten availability on the employment rate of mothers of preschool-aged children in the Czech Republic. It brings together data from the Population Census and School Register to form a unique database describing the demand for childcare (numbers of children aged 3–5) and supply (capacity) across more than 6,000 Czech municipalities between 2001 and 2011. We take advantage of variations in kindergarten availability over time to estimate the impact on maternal employment with a first differences model. Our estimates show that a 10 percentage point increase in the availability of kindergarten places led to a 0.2–0.4 percentage point increase in the employment rate of mothers of preschool-aged children. A drop in the availability of kindergarten places between 2001 and 2011 resulted in 9,000 fewer mothers being employed and a net loss to public finances of 1.2–1.7 billion CZK per year.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0349529


Research data: Zenodo, PubMed Central