Parental Employment and Child Investments (PEACH)

The project Parental Employment and Child Outcomes (PEACH) analyses the causal effect of flexible and non-standard working practices on both parental and child outcomes in the UK. Such working arrangements allow parents to participate in labour market and increase the family’s financial resources while cushioning time availability constraints, which translates to better and more inputs to improve child outcomes. They also help parents maintain a balance between work and family life leading to increased productivity and improved well-being. However, there are costs involved, particularly in reference to wages, job stability/security, promotion, and training, as well as with regard to leisure time. As the issue gains more relevance, a better understanding also becomes more essential, and a simple correlation of child and parental outcomes for families who do and do not adopt such working practices would be biased. This is because the decision of a family to choose flexible and non-standard working arrangements is related to their preferences and traits which are unobservable to the researcher. Applying microeconometric methods, the project PEACH aims to fill this gap in the literature by analysing the 2003 UK Flexible Working Act, which allow individuals to relax the full-time and the standard hours commitment to their job.