Wasted investment? The effectiveness of kindergarten in promoting female labour supply
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PhD Seminar (Econ)
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This paper examines the effects of preschool enrolment, particularly kindergarten, on female labour supply in Indonesia, a country with a large informal sector including for childcare. Identification strategy is based on sharp and fuzzy regression discontinuity (RD) designs exploiting the age eligibility rule for kindergarten enrolment. The paper finds no evidence that kindergarten enrolment affects labour force participation, employment, work hours, or job searching, for all females and mothers. However, working mothers with children enrolled in kindergarten are less likely to be in formal employment by 15.9 percentage points. The negative effect on formal employment is primarily driven by married mothers, those with primary education and below, and those in the bottom 40 percent of the household expenditure distribution.
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