TY  - JOUR
AU  - Compton,Janice
AU  - Pollak,Robert A.
TI  - Family Proximity, Childcare, and Women's Labor Force Attachment
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17678
PY  - 2011
Y2  - December 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17678
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17678.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Janice Compton
Department of Economics
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB, R3R 5V5
CANADA
E-Mail: comptonj@cc.umanitoba.ca

Robert Pollak
Washington University in St. Louis
Arts and Sciences
and the Olin Business School
Campus Box 1133
1 Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO  63130-4899
Tel: 314/935-4918
Fax: 314/935-6359
E-Mail: pollak@wustl.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2012-04-01
AB  - We show that close geographical proximity to mothers or mothers-in-law has a substantial positive effect on the labor supply of married women with young children. We argue that the mechanism through which proximity increases labor supply is the availability of childcare. We interpret availability broadly enough to include not only regular scheduled childcare during work hours but also an insurance aspect of proximity (e.g., a mother or mother-in-law who can provide irregular or unanticipated childcare). Using two large datasets, the National Survey of Families and Households and the public use files of the U.S. Census, we find that the predicted probability of employment and labor force participation is 4-10 percentage points higher for married women with young children living in close proximity to their mothers or their mothers-in-law compared with those living further away.
ER  -