TY - JOUR
T1 - Full-Day Kindergarten: Effects on Maternal Labor Supply
AU - Dhuey, Elizabeth
AU - Lamontagne, Jessie
AU - Zhang, Tingting
N1 - Funding Information:
Ontario has four different publicly funded school systems/boards: English Public, English Catholic, French Public, and French Catholic. Additionally, approximately 5 percent of students in Ontario attend mostly religious (Protestant denominations) private schools (Card, Dooley, and Payne 2010). Schools are administered by school boards, which receive funding from the province. Every school board in Ontario is governed by a Board of Trustees, generally elected via municipal elections every four years.5 Each school board also has a director of education who serves as secretary on the Board of Trustees. All school board staff report either directly or indirectly to the Director of Education. As governors of the school board, the two most important responsibilities of boards of trustees are the development and monitoring of multiyear strategic plans, and the hiring and performance management of directors of education. The Board of Trustees also approves the school board’s annual budget. School boards receive funding from the province almost entirely based on an educational funding formula, and the Board of Trustees is responsible for ensuring the school board has a balanced budget that reflects their strategic plan. During the rollout of the changes under consideration here, it is possible that there was competition between schools within a school board that may have affected the timing of the implementation, but there is no evidence, anecdotal or empirical, that this occurred. It is also very unlikely because the rollout was planned to be swift and universal.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Association for Education Finance and Policy.
PY - 2021/10/1
Y1 - 2021/10/1
N2 - We examine the effects of offering full-day kindergarten as a replacement for half-day kindergarten on mothers’ labor supply using the rollout of full-day kindergarten in Ontario, Canada. We find no effect on the extensive margin but found an effect on the intensive margin. In particular, we find that access to full-day kindergarten increases weekly hours worked and decreases absenteeism among mothers with kindergarten-aged children. This effect is driven by specific subgroups, namely, nonimmigrant mothers with low education levels who live in urban areas and have only one child.
AB - We examine the effects of offering full-day kindergarten as a replacement for half-day kindergarten on mothers’ labor supply using the rollout of full-day kindergarten in Ontario, Canada. We find no effect on the extensive margin but found an effect on the intensive margin. In particular, we find that access to full-day kindergarten increases weekly hours worked and decreases absenteeism among mothers with kindergarten-aged children. This effect is driven by specific subgroups, namely, nonimmigrant mothers with low education levels who live in urban areas and have only one child.
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U2 - 10.1162/edfp_a_00321
DO - 10.1162/edfp_a_00321
M3 - Article
SN - 1557-3060
VL - 16
SP - 533
EP - 557
JO - Education Finance and Policy
JF - Education Finance and Policy
IS - 4
ER -