![]() The study finds that a grandmother’s death, through its impact on childcare, reduces the probability of mothers being employed by 12 percentage points (27%), an effect that lasts for at least a year. ![]() Leveraging the importance of grandmothers as childcare providers, my study uses the timing of grandmothers’ deaths to estimate the causal relationship between childcare availability and the employment of their parents. In Europe, between 50% and 70% of grandmothers provide at least some childcare during the year, and in Mexico, they are the primary childcare providers, looking after almost 40 percent of children up to six years old-as much as schools and daycare combined. Grandmothers are essential sources of childcare across the globe. That is what I did in a study I did in Mexico in which I used the importance of grandmothers as caregivers-and the timing of their deaths-to examine the issue. To understand the causal relationship between the availability of childcare and employment, we need to vary external factors-or, as economists say, employ exogenous variation. But how do we know whether she works because she has access to childcare or whether she uses childcare because she has a job? A Study in Mexico on Childcare and the Gender Gap For example, a mother may take her child to daycare and have a full-time job. However, the relationship between childcare availability and labor force participation is hard to measure because parents decide those two things simultaneously. With women bearing a disproportionate burden in terms of taking care of their children, childcare can be crucial to reducing the gender gap. Social norms are another barrier, including the question of who bears responsibility for household chores and childcare. Several factors, including specialization, gender roles, personal preferences, and labor market discrimination may be driving the wedge in labor force participation between men and women. These findings are consistent with a gender gap and motherhood penalty that peak between 20 and 40 years of age when people are most likely to have children. ![]() In Mexico, as another study reveals, a child’s birth reduces mother’s labor force participation by 16 percentage points (32%), even 15 months later, while leaving it unchanged for the father. This effect is of particular concern in developing countries, where less progressive attitudes about women in the labor force, less female decision-making power in the household, and gender-based violence exacerbate the gender gap. A study from Denmark, for example, shows a sharp divergence in men and women’s labor force participation immediately after their first child’s birth, with no recovery for women even after ten years. Motherhood has much to do with creating and widening the gender gap. As a recent IDB study reveals, the gender gap in the labor market has sizable economic costs for the countries of the region, and reducing it would significantly boost economic growth and development. This slow advance not only affects individual women. Over the last year, 16 out of the 22 countries of the region have reduced their gender gap by less than one percentage point, and at that pace it will take 67 years to close the gap altogether. While the region has bridged 72.6% of its gender gap, progress is currently stagnant. But far more progress is needed to create opportunities in which women can realize their economic potential. ![]() Women have been gaining ground in labor markets, transitioning into paid work and increasingly into leadership positions in Latin America and the Caribbean. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |