Does privatization of daycare affect maternal employment?

ABSTRACT

This article is the first attempt to examine the privatization effects of daycare centres on the employment of mothers with preschool children. Analysing newly constructed municipality-level data for 2000, 2005 and 2010 in Japan, the results suggest that an increased proportion of private daycare centres has positive effects on mothers’ labour force participation, and the effects are large for municipalities in Tokyo metropolitan area.

KEYWORDS:

• Maternal employment
• daycare privatization
• Japan

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• J13
• J18
• J21

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ In this article, the term ‘daycare centre’ refers to ‘licensed’ daycare centres. See Nishitateno and Shikata (2017) for the detailed information on the daycare sector in Japan.

² One such variable may be the local government’s view of childcare.

³ Such events include a nation-wide secular rise in female wages and changes in parental leave and other labour legislation mandated by the national government.