Grandparental Availability for Child Care and Maternal Employment: Pension Reform Evidence from Italy

39 Pages Posted: 19 Jun 2016

See all articles by Massimiliano Bratti

Massimiliano Bratti

Università degli Studi di Milano - DEAS; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Tommaso Frattini

University of Milan - Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano (LdA); University of Milan - Department of Economics, Business and Statistics

Francesco Scervini

University of Pavia

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: May 1, 2016

Abstract

in this paper we exploit pension reform-induced changes in retirement eligibility requirements to assess the role of grandparental child care availability in the employment of women who have children under 15. We focus on Italy for two reasons: first, it has low rates of female employment and little formal child care provision and, second, it has undergone several pension reforms in a relatively short time span. Our analysis shows that, among the women studied, those whose own mothers are retirement eligible have a 13 percent higher probability of being employed than those whose mothers are ineligible. The pension eligibility of maternal grandfathers and paternal grandparents, however, has no significant effect on the women's employment probability. We also demonstrate that the eligibility of maternal grandmothers mainly captures the effect of their availability for child care. Hence, pension reforms, by potentially robbing households of an important source of flexible, low-cost child care, could have unintended negative consequences for the employment rates of women with children.

Keywords: grandparental child care, maternal employment, pension reform, retirement

JEL Classification: J13, J22

Suggested Citation

Bratti, Massimiliano and Frattini, Tommaso and Scervini, Francesco, Grandparental Availability for Child Care and Maternal Employment: Pension Reform Evidence from Italy (May 1, 2016). Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano Development Studies Working Paper No. 391, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2796690 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2796690

Massimiliano Bratti

Università degli Studi di Milano - DEAS ( email )

Via Conservatorio, 7
I-20122 Milano
Italy

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Tommaso Frattini (Contact Author)

University of Milan - Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano (LdA) ( email )

Via P. Amedeo 34
Milano, Mi 20122
Italy

University of Milan - Department of Economics, Business and Statistics ( email )

Via Festa del Perdono, 7
Milan, 20122
Italy

Francesco Scervini

University of Pavia ( email )

Corso Strada Nuova, 65
27100 Pavia, 27100
Italy

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/view/francescoscervini

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