children playing

Child-care policy and the labor supply of mothers with young children: A natural experiment from Canada

Printer-friendly versionSend by emailPDF version
Author: 
Lefebvre, Pierre, and Merrigan, Philip
Format: 
Report
Publication Date: 
1 Oct 2008
AVAILABILITY

Abstract:

In 1997, the provincial government of Quebec, the second most populous province in Canada, initiated a new child-care policy. Licensed child-care service providers began offering day-care spaces at the reduced fee of $5.00 per day per child for children aged 4. By 2000, the policy applied to all children not in kindergarten. Using annual data (1993&em;2002) drawn from Statistics Canada's Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, the results show that the policy had a large and statistically significant impact on the labor supply of mothers with preschool children.

Region: