The Effect of Children's Time in School on Mothers' Labor Supply : Evidence from Mexico's Full-Time Schools Program

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of the time children spend in school on female labor supply. In particular, the researchers investigate the degree to which extending the school day by three and a half hours, in elementary schools, affects labor force participation, the number of weekly hours worked, and the monthly earnings of females with elementaryschool-age children. To do so, we exploit within-individual variation in access to fulltime schools and a rotating panel of households that contains individual-level data on labor outcomes and sociodemographic characteristics. Results from long-difference models show that extending the school day increases mothers’ labor supply, increasing mothers’ labor force participation by 5.5 percentage points and the number of weekly hours worked by 1.8. Moreover, these increases are accompanied by an increase in monthly earnings.