A Structural Model of Childcare, Welfare, and the Labor Supply of Single Mothers

• This paper considers the simultaneous relationship of the single mother's decision to choose paid childcare, welfare participation and labor supply, and estimates a structural model that allows for a free error covariance. We use a discrete approach to the choice of labor supply together with the discrete choices of utilized paid childcare and welfare participation, which allow formulating the model as a multiple-choice problem. The results show that there is an association between social assistance, paid childcare and labor supply, but that the relationship is non-symmetric. An increase in the social assistance norms has a relatively small effect on paid childcare utilization, but a relatively larger effect on the mean labor supply. In contrast, a corresponding reduction in the childcare cost has a relatively large effect on the social assistance utilization but a relatively small effect on the mean labor supply. Our estimates suggest that a decrease in childcare cost increases the labor supply of those working rather than encourages non-workers to start work, which implies that childcare cost is foremost a barrier to fulltime work rather then a barrier to work at all.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

labor supply; paid childcare; welfare participation; structural model; simulated maximum likelihood; Halton draws

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

rap (subject category)