Working papers

How Daycare Affects the Intergenerational Transmission of Schooling (Joint with Paul Bingley)

Abstract Increased female schooling, greater labor market participation, and the wider availability of daycare in many countries have changed the way mothers interact with their children. We exploit a Danish schooling reform affecting the maternal generation alongside differential access to daycare affecting the offspring generation, and identify the causal chain from maternal schooling, via daycare availability, to child’s schooling. We find that one more year of maternal schooling increases maternal labor supply by five percentage point and offspring schooling by two months. Greater daycare availability increases schooling transmission – consistent with the complementarity of early years of highly schooled maternal care followed by later institutional care provision. 

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Parental Time Investments and the Adult Outcomes of their Children (joint with Mette Gørtz and Almudena Sevilla)

High socio-economic status parents consistently produce high socio-economic status children—the question is how. Yet empirical evidence on how parental time investments affect child outcomes is limited. Using child-specific time investments from the Danish Time Use Survey linked to register data, this article is the first to empirically estimate associations between parental time investments and outcomes of their offspring beyond their childhood and adolescent years. We control for sibling fixed effects as well as child-specific characteristics and birth endowments. Multiple hypothesis testing reveals no statistically significant effects of parental time on children's long-run outcomes. By looking at the long-run effects of parental time investments our results inform the design of policy interventions aimed at reducing the persistence of inter-generational inequality.

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PhD Thesis

Investments in Universal Early Childhood Education 

This dissertation consists of three self-contained chapters on universal early childhood education. They complement each other by investigating three different perspectives of a large-scale investment in the rollout of universal daycare in Denmark during the late 1960s and 70s. Prior to 1964, subsidized childcare was targeted at single parents and parents, where they both had to work to make ends meet. This was changed in 1965, as the childcare regulations were changed to include subsidies to all families. Thus, by 1965, the Danish childcare system was changed from a targeted to a universal daycare system. The first chapter examines how the introduction of universal daycare in the mid-1960s has affected children’s educational attainment and earnings at age 35. The results in the first chapter point out that the effects are greatest for children of high-educated mothers, especially their sons benefit from universal daycare. The results in the first chapter are a new contribution to the literature on the longterm effects of universal childcare, since previous studies have found that childcare outside the home can have negative consequences for children of high-educated mothers. In the Danish context, the difference between the effects for children of low- and high-educated mothers can be explained by differences in the mothers’ labor market participation. The introduction of universal daycare increases the probability of employment for mothers with no post-secondary education, while college-educated mothers primarily shift from part-time to full-time employment. For both groups, the long-run effects of daycare on maternal earnings and family income are five percent. Combining all of the results suggest that the mechanisms behind the long-run child outcomes are a shift from informal to formal care rather than increased household resources for children of college-educated mothers, and a shift from maternal to formal care for children of low-educated mothers. The second chapter deepens the relationship between maternal education, the education of their children, and public provision of daycare. Increased female schooling, greater labor market participation, and the wider availability of daycare in many countries have changed the way mothers interact with their children. However, for each individual, it is a choice to attain more education and a choice to enroll their children in daycare. These choices complicate an analysis of how maternal education and daycare affects the schooling of the offspring generation. This chapter exploits a Danish schooling reform affecting the maternal generation alongside differential access to daycare affecting the offspring generation, and identify the causal chain from maternal schooling, via daycare availability, to child’s schooling. The results indicate that one more year of maternal schooling increases offspring schooling by two months. At the same time, this intergenerational effect is greater for the children who had access to daycare. Thus, greater daycare availability increases schooling transmission– consistent with the complementarity of early years of highly schooled maternal care followed by later institutional care provision. The third chapter looks at how the opportunity to enroll children in daycare affect mothers’ career over a lifetime. Specifically, mothers with daycare access during their firstborn child’s pre-school years are compared to mothers without daycare access. The results show that universal daycare access affects mothers’ labor force participation, full-time employment, and long-run earnings. Mothers with daycare access work more, both part time and full time. Likewise, they have higher earnings, even more than 30 years after they had their first child. The third chapter also shows that mothers with daycare access are less likely to live with the father of the child 16 years after the child was born, that they have fewer children, and that they wait longer between childbirths. For high-educated mothers, participation effects diminish over time, while earnings effects prevail in the long run. This indicates that the experience gained through jobs during child-rearing years is important for earnings in the long run.

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