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...

There is a heated debate in the US, Canada and many European countries about introducing universally accessible child care. However, studies on universal child care and child development are scarce and only consider short-run outcomes. We analyze the introduction of universal child care in...

This study examines the cost burden of child care, defined as day care expenses divided by after-tax income. Data are from the wave 10 core and child care topical modules to the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation. We estimate that the average child under six years of age lives in a...

This paper critically reviews what we know about the long-term effects of parental leave and early childhood education programs. We find only limited evidence that expansions of parental leave durations improved long-run educational or labor market outcomes of the children whose parents were...

Using Bulgarian Integrated Household Surveys for 1995, 1997 and 2001 this paper explores determinants of labor force status – not working, public sector employment, private sector employment and self-employment – and earnings for each of the three employment sectors. We find that while...

We model the bargaining process of parents over custody at the time of divorce. First we assume an institutional setting where only sole custody is available. In a second step we reform this institutional setting and introduce the possibility of joint custody. We show that some parents, who...