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...

Prior empirical research on the theoretically proposed interaction between the quantity and the quality of children builds on exogenous variation in family size due to twin births and focuses on human capital outcomes. The typical finding can be described as a statistically nonsignificant...

We examine how the number of beds available in a maternity ward affects the likelihood of cesarean delivery and maternal health. Our analysis is based on administrative data from Austria. We exploit idiosyncratic daily variation in the occupancy of maternity hospital beds. We find that empty...

We estimate gender gaps in the allocation of time by Italian adults and their trends over the years 2002-2014. We disentangle time use in weekdays and weekend days and analyse separately full-time working parents with young children, representing the subsample more mindful of gender parity. In...

We study the impact of child care for toddlers on the labor supply of mothers and fathers in Norway. For identification, we exploit the staggered expansion across municipalities following a large reform from 2002. Our IV-estimates indicate that child care use causes an increase in the labor...

The objective of this research is to explore the impact of early childcare on child cognitive outcomes. We utilize the Millennium Cohort Survey (MCS) for the United Kingdom, which provides very detailed information about several modalities of childcare as well as several child outcomes. In our...

We evaluate the Reggio Approach using non-experimental data on individuals from the cities of Reggio Emilia, Parma and Padova belonging to one of five age cohorts: ages 50, 40, 30, 18, and 6 as of 2012. The treated were exposed to municipally offered infant-toddler (ages 0–3) and preschool...

Advocates of a universal child care system offer a two-fold argument: Child care facilitates children's long-run development, and levels the playing field by benefiting in particular disadvantaged children. Therefore, a critical element in evaluating universal child care systems is to measure...

The strong correlation between child care and maternal employment rates has led previous research to conclude that affordable and readily available child care is a driving force both of cross-country differences in maternal employment and of its rapid growth over the last decades. We analyze the...