The effect of a large expansion of pre-primary school facilities on preschool attendance and maternal employment
Abstract
We provide evidence on the impact of a large-scale construction of pre-primary school facilities in Argentina. We estimate the causal impact of the program on pre-primary school attendance and maternal labor supply. Identification relies on a differences-in-differences strategy where we combine differences across regions in the number of facilities built with differences in exposure across cohorts induced by the timing of the program. We find a sizeable impact of the program on pre-primary school participation among children aged between 3 and 5. In fact, we cannot reject the null hypothesis of a full take-up of newly constructed places. In addition, we find that the implicit childcare subsidy induced by the program appears to increases maternal employment.
Citation
Labour Economics (2007) 14 (3) 665-680 [doi: 10.1016/j.labeco.2007.01.003]