Childcare availability and maternal labour supply in Russia

Abstract

Over the past 15 years, Russia experienced an increase in childcare enrolment from 55% to 66.2%, reflecting an increase in childcare availability that was rolled out unequally across the Russian regions - the enrolment rate has increased from less than 1% in some regions to almost 35% in other regions. Exploiting a substantial variation in childcare availability across regions over time, this paper uses the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey to evaluate the impact of extending childcare availability on mothers' labour outcomes. I find that an increase in childcare availability has a positive and significant effect on maternal employment both at the intensive and the extensive margins and the effects are higher for partnered mothers. A set of robustness checks confirm the validity of the identification strategy and the results.