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The perceived impact of child care costs on women’s labor supply and fertility

  • Women’s roles
  • Published:
Demography

Abstract

In a sample of Detroit-area mothers of preschool-aged children interviewed in 1986, one-third reported that child care problems had constrained their employment. Such reports were relatively prevalent among poor women. those without relatives nearby, and those willing to entrust the care of their children to nonfamily members. Only one-tenth of the sample reported a similar child care constraint on fertility, a phenomenon unrelated to income but relatively prevalent among women with strong labor force attachment. The results suggest that policies to increase the supply of child care or to lower its cost could increase female labor supply by a substantial fraction, with an even greater rise among women most at risk of poverty and reliance on public assistance, but probably would not raise fertility significantly.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program on Population, East-West Center, 96848, Honolulu, HI

    Karen Oppenheim Mason

  2. Massachusetts Department of Health, 02111, Boston, MA

    Karen Kuhlthau

Authors
  1. Karen Oppenheim Mason
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  2. Karen Kuhlthau
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Additional information

This is a revised version of a paper presented at the annual meetings of the Population Association of America, held in Chicago April 29-May I, 1987. The research reported herein was supported by Grant RO1-HD20260 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We thank Fred Amold, John Bauer, Lee-Jay Cho, Douglas Ewbank, Robert Gardner, Janice Hedges, Linda Martin, Andrew Mason, William Mason, Harriet Presser, and the anonymous reviewers for their advice, and J. Michael Coble, Naomi Higa, and Amy Hsu for computer assistance.

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Mason, K.O., Kuhlthau, K. The perceived impact of child care costs on women’s labor supply and fertility. Demography 29, 523–543 (1992). https://doi.org/10.2307/2061850

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