Push and Pull of Labor Supply
Paper Session
Monday, Jan. 4, 2021 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)
- Chair: Erica Groshen, Cornell University
Child Care Access and Parents’ Job Productivity: Evidence from the Marine Corps
Abstract
Almost four million babies are born in the U.S. every year (Hamilton et al. 2019). Dramatic shifts in home life after having a baby can impact adult health (Saxbe et al., 2018) and may spill over into parents’ performance at work. New parents may thus exert substantial influence on labor market productivity. At the same time, family policy supports, such as access to child care, may bolster adult health and job performance during the transition parenthood.This study leverages rich administrative data from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to study the impact of access to child care on first-time parents’ job productivity in the U.S. Marines. We exploit idiosyncratic variation month-to-month in the availability of infant child care slots to proxy for child care access after birth. Notably, the DoD provides service members with DoD-operated high-quality, low cost child care near all base locations. Service members move every few years, conditionally at random (Cunha, Shen, & Burke, 2017), generating variation in the number of young children in need of child care at any given location. Higher shares of infants living near base may result in longer child care wait for families who have just had a child.
We use an event-study framework to quantify (1) the impact of childbirth on men and women’s job productivity and (2) the impact of variation in access to child care on these outcomes. Results indicate that mothers’ and fathers’ job-related physical performance suffers immediately following child birth. Effects are larger and last longer for women after a birth compared to men. Analyses will next quantify the impact of access to child care on work outcomes.
Why Is Mommy So Stressed Out? Estimating the Immediate Impact of the “COVID Shock” on Parental Attachment to the Labor Market and the Double-Bind of Mothers
Abstract
In this paper, I examine the impact of the “COVID shock” on parents’ labor supply immediately during the initial stages of the pandemic. Using a difference-in-difference approach and Current Population Survey (CPS) monthly data from 2019 and 2020, I compare labor market attachment, engagement in non-work activities, hours worked, and the earnings and wages of those in areas with early school closures and stay-in-place orders to those in areas with delayed or no pandemic closures. I find that mothers working in formal labor markets kept working at the same rate as their counterparts in states with later closures even though their domestic responsibilities grew exponentially earlier on. Fathers, on the other hand, were much more likely to leave the labor market entirely or experience high levels of unemployment than fathers in late closure states.Health Insurance and the Supply of Entrepreneurs: Evidence from the ACA Medicaid Expansion
Abstract
This paper examines whether the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act increases entrepreneurship, measured as self-employment. Using the 2003–2017 Current Population Survey and focusing on childless adults in low-income households, and applying difference-in-differences, propensity score weighting, and instrumental variable (IV) methods, I find that expanding Medicaid eligibility raises the self-employment rate by 14 to 22 percent. The effects are driven by individuals without spousal employer-sponsored coverage. IV estimates indicate that covered individuals have more than two times higher probability to become self-employed. Findings suggest that limited access to health insurance is a barrier to entrepreneurship.Discussant(s)
Olga Malkova
,
University of Kentucky
Marta Murray-Close
,
U.S. Census Bureau
Leonard Nakamura
,
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Austin Nichols
,
Abt Associates
JEL Classifications
- J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor