Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T08:39:21.839Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mothers' Human Capital and Childcare in Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Heather Joshi  and
Hugh Davies
Hugh Davies
Affiliation:
Social Statistics Research Unit, The City University, and Department of Economics, Birkbeck College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Childcare may affect the earnings of mothers, not just by enabling them to take employment while using it, but also by conserving human capital and increasing earnings at later stages of the mother's life. This paper simulates the lifetime earnings of a ‘typical’ British mother under a variety of childcare regimes. Childcare which continues into the years of schooling is particularly valuable. For a woman who changes her labour force participation behaviour as a result of the availability of childcare, the resources generated are shown to exceed the resource costs of the childcare, and the revenue gain to the exchequer may exceed the costs of 100 per cent subsidy.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 146 , November 1993 , pp. 50 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

∗

Social Statistics Research Unit, The City University, and Department of Economics, Birkbeck College, respectively. Heather Joshi thanks the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council for financial support. This paper has benefitted from the comments of Nick Oulton and three anonymous referees.

References

Bone, M., (1977),Pre-School Children and the Need for Daycare, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Cohen, B. and Fraser, N., (1991), Child Care in a Modern Welfare System: Towards a New National Policy, London: Institute for Public Policy Research.Google Scholar
Department of Employment (1993), ‘Childcare help for working parents’, Employment Gazette, January, 647.Google Scholar
Ermisch, J.F., (1989), ‘Purchased child care, optimal family size and mothers'employment: theory and econometric analysis’, Journal of Population Economics, no. 2, pp. 79–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ermisch, J.F. and Wright, R.E., (1993), ‘Wage offers and full-time and part-time employment by British women’, Journal of Human Resources, 28, Winter, pp. 111–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghs, (1991), General Household Survey, no. 22, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Green, F., (1993), ‘The determinants of training of male and female employees in Britain’, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, no. 55, pp. 103–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haskell, J. and Martin, C., (1993), ‘Do skill shortages reduce productivity? theory and evidence from the United Kingdom’, Economic Journal, no. 103, pp. 386–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holtermann, S., (1992), Investing in Children: Costing and Funding an Educational and Day Care Service for Young Children, London : National Children's Bureau.Google Scholar
Holtermann, S., (1993), Becoming a Breadwinner: Policies to Assist Lone Parents with Childcare, London: the Daycare Trust.Google Scholar
Holtermann, S. and Clarke, K., (1992), ‘Parents, employment rights and childcare’, Research Discussion Series, No. 4, Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission.Google Scholar
Inland Revenue, (1992), Tax and Childcare, Personal Taxpayer Series, IR115.Google Scholar
Jarvis, V. and Prais, S.J., (1989), ‘Two nations of shopkeepers: training for retailing in France and Britain’, National Institute Economic Review, no. 128, May, 58–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joshi, H., (1990), ‘The cash opportunity cost of childbearing: an approach to estimation using British data’, Population Studies, no. 44, pp. 41–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joshi, H. and Davies, H., (1991), ‘Pension splitting and divorce’, Fiscal Studies, no. 12, November, pp. 69–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joshi, H. and Davies, H., (1992a), ‘Child care and mothers' lifetime earnings: some European contrasts’, CEPR Discussion Paper no. 600, London : Centre for Economic Policy Research.Google Scholar
Joshi, H. and Davies, H., (1992b), ‘Daycare in Europe and mothers' forgone earnings’, International Labour Review, no. 132, pp. 561–579.Google Scholar
Katz, E. and Ziderman, A. (1990), ‘Investment in general training: the role of information and labour mobility’, Economic Journal, no. 100, pp. 1147–1158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McRae, S., (1993), ‘Returning to work after childbearing: opportunities and inequalities’, European Sociological Review, vol. 9, no. 2, Sept 1993, pp. 125–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mankiw, N.G., Romer, D. and Weil, D.N., (1992), ‘A contribution to the empirics of economic growth’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, no. 107, pp. 407–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marsh, A. and McKay, S., (1993), ‘Families, work and the use of childcare’, Employment Gazette, August, pp. 361–370.Google Scholar
Martin, J. and Roberts, C., (1984), Women and Employment a Lifetime Perspective, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
National Academy of Sciences, (1983), Children of Working Parents, Washington DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Petrie, P. and Logan, P., (1986), After School and in the Holidays: the Responsibility for Looking After Schoolchildren, London: Thomas Coram Research Unit.Google Scholar
Phelps, E.S., (1972), Inflation Policy and Unemployment Theory, New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Ribar, D.C., (1992), ‘Child care and the labor supply of married women: reduced form evidence’, Journal of Human Resources, no. 27, pp. 134–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, G., (1989), Families and Under Fives in Strathclyde, Glasgow: Strathclyde Regional Council.Google Scholar
Simpson, R., (1986), The Cost of Childcare Services, in Children and Equal Opportunities, Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission.Google Scholar
Social Trends, (1993), No 23, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Weber, C.U., Foster, P.W. and Weikart, D.P., (1978), An Economic Analysis of the Ypsilanti Perry Preschool Project, Ypsilanti, Michigan: High/Scope Educational Research Foundation.Google Scholar
Witherspoon, S. and Prior, G., (1992), Working Mothers: Free to Choose?, in Jowell, R., Brook, L. and Taylor, B.British Social Attitudes: the 8th Report, Aldershot: Dartmouth, pp. 131–154.Google Scholar