Research

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of public childcare expansion for children under three on child penalties, exploiting childcare policy reforms implemented in Germany from 2005 to 2014. Leveraging regional variation in the timing and intensity of this expansion at the county level and using rich administrative data, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in early childcare coverage reduces mothers' child penalties in earnings by 1.6-2.3 percentage points, accounting for approximately 40-56\% of the overall decline in child penalties during the reform period. This reduction in maternal earnings penalties is driven by increased working days and hours, higher daily wages, and a greater likelihood of employment in higher-paying firms and occupations. Contributing to existing literature reporting mixed results, our findings suggest that early childcare provision can have substantial and long-lasting positive effects on maternal labor supply in a setting of high initial child penalties and limited alternative childcare. Our study highlights the importance of specific contexts in assessing the effectiveness of public childcare provision.

Abstract: This study examines the impact of public childcare expansion for children under three in Germany on parental labor dynamics, particularly focusing on fathers' responses to the increased maternal labor supply facilitated by expanded childcare availability. Using extensive administrative data, we find that the expansion of childcare led fathers to reduce their labor supply in terms of days worked while significantly increasing their uptake of parental leave. Crucially, fathers' leave-taking patterns closely synchronize with mothers' return to work, highlighting the joint labor supply and leave-taking decision among couples. These findings provide broader implications for gender equality within households by demonstrating that parents coordinate their labor supply in response to family policies.

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of intensified import competition on domestic outsourcing in U.S. manufacturing focusing on the case of cleaning and security jobs. To exploit variation in import penetration across industries and local labor markets, I identify domestic outsourcing at the three-digit Census industry and commuting zone levels using data from the Decennial Censuses and American Community surveys. Employing the IV strategy that captures the supply-driven components of import penetration in the US in each time period (1980-1990, 1990-2000, and 2000-2010), I find that exposure to higher import competition increased domestic outsourcing of cleaning and security jobs in the US significantly in the 1980s but not afterward. This suggests that heightened import competition served as a crucial trigger for U.S. domestic outsourcing in its infancy. However, as domestic outsourcing became a more widely-known labor practice among firms, import competition was no longer a driver.

In this project, I examine how domestic outsourcing practices affect gender disparities in labor markets. Specifically, I aim to address three key questions: 1) Do workers in female-dominated occupations suffer larger wage losses after being outsourced? 2) Within the same occupations, do women face greater wage reductions after being outsourced? 3) If so, what mechanisms explain this, and how has it contributed to the overall gender inequality in the labor market? Regarding the first question, I find that workers in female-dominated occupations, such as cleaning or secretarial work, experience more significant earnings reductions after being outsourced than workers in male-dominated occupations, such as security or logistics, using German administrative data. Continuing work on the project will further investigate the remaining questions.

In our paper “The Impact of Early Public Childcare on Child Penalties,” we have shown that the expansion of public childcare for very young children improves various labor market outcomes of mothers. This leads to a pertinent question: If more mothers return to work after childbirth and work longer hours in higher-paying positions due to increased public childcare availability, how does this affect the labor market outcomes of young female workers (pre-mothers) or their male coworkers? Better performance by mothers in labor markets post-childbirth could empower other women or influence employers’ hiring or promotion preferences for women. We aim to investigate this by leveraging variations in the employment share of mothers who gave birth in the year of childcare expansion at the county-establishment-occupation level. Using German administrative data, we identify coworkers of mothers within each establishment-occupation cell and examine how the proportion of mothers exposed to a sudden and large childcare expansion affects the wage growth of pre-mothers or male coworkers. Our preliminary findings indicate that pre-mothers in occupation-county cells with a higher concentration of mothers giving birth in the year of large childcare expansion experienced greater wage growth before becoming mothers.