Many developed countries currently consider a move towards a universal child care program. The challenge in assessing the case for universal child care programs is that the evidence base is scarce. We analyze the staged expansion of subsidized, universally accessible child care in Norway. Our...

Gender stereotypes are well established also among women. Yet, a recent literature suggests that learning from other women experience about the effects of maternal employment on children outcomes may increase female labor force participation. To further explore this channel, we design a...

We provide a novel interpretation of the estimated treatment effects from evaluations of parental leave reforms. Accounting for the counterfactual mode of care is crucial in the analysis of child outcomes and potential mediators. We evaluate a large and generous parental leave extension in...

Given that young children are under the control of their parents, if the government has an interest in either the welfare or the productivity of the former, it has no option but to act through the latter. Parents are, in the ordinary sense of the word, the government’s agents. They are agents...

Using Austrian and Danish administrative data, we examine the impacts of parenthood on mental health. Parenthood imposes a greater mental health burden on mothers than on fathers. It creates a long-run gender gap in antidepressant prescriptions of about 93.2% (Austria) and 64.8% (Denmark). These...

Conventional pension systems suffer from a design defect which makes them financially unsustainable, and a source of inefficiency for the economy as a whole. The paper outlines a second-best policy which includes a public pension system made up of two parallel schemes, a Bismarckian one allowing...

This paper investigates the impact of parenting courses on fragile families' time use with their children. Courses aimed at raising parental awareness of the importance of educational activities are offered in four Italian cities (Naples, Reggio Emilia, Teramo and Palermo) within the framework...

The relationship between government and parents is modelled as a principal-agent problem, with the former in the role of principal and the latter in the role of agents. We make three major points. The first is that, if the well-being of the child depends not only on luck, but also on parental...

We empirically investigate the determinants of the female decision of investing in post-secondary education, focusing on the role played by the context where young women take their education decision. We first develop a stylized two-period model to analyze the female decision of investing in...

The effects and optimal choice of policy instruments affecting the family (child benefits, taxes on child-specific commodities, etc.) are examined within the context of a household economics model with fertility choice. The simultaneous consideration of child benefits and commodity taxes in the...