Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/142418 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9979
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
In this paper, we exploit pension reform-induced changes in retirement eligibility requirements to assess the role of grandparental child care availability in the employment of women who have children under 15. We focus on Italy for two reasons: first, it has low rates of female employment and little formal child care provision, and second, it has undergone several pension reforms in a relatively short time span. Our analysis shows that, among the women studied, those whose own mothers are retirement eligible have a 13 percent higher probability of being employed than those whose mothers are ineligible. The pension eligibility of maternal grandfathers and paternal grandparents, however, has no significant effect on the women's employment probability. We also demonstrate that the eligibility of maternal grandmothers mainly captures the effect of their availability for child care. Hence, pension reforms, by potentially robbing households of an important source of flexible, low-cost child care, could have unintended negative consequences for the employment rates of women with children.
Subjects: 
grandparental child care
maternal employment
pension reform
retirement
JEL: 
J13
J22
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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