The Effect of Child's School Entry on Maternal Employment: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from South Korea

Abstract

Public school is a form of highly subsidized, universal childcare and thus an important aspect of childcare policies. We examine the impact of a child's school entry on maternal employment in South Korea where mothers have been inactive in the labour force. We utilize a natural experiment where the school-age eligibility requirement in South Korea generates an exogenous variation in the cost of childcare and lends itself to a regression discontinuity design. Our findings suggest that for women with low levels of own or spouse's education, enrolling their children in school leads to a sizeable increase in labour force participation. Copyright (c) 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.