Analysis On The Effect And Mechanism Of Preschool Child Care On The Employment Of Rural And Urban Women Of Childbearing Age

Increasing female employment plays an important role in promoting gender equality,increasing household income,and driving economic growth.However,in recent years,due to the "care deficit" of children,the labor force participation rate of women of childbearing age in China’s urban and rural areas has been declining significantly,and there are many restrictions in terms of salary levels and promotion channels.In addition,as China’s "demographic dividend" is diminishing and the labor force gap crisis is becoming more pronounced due to increasing aging and low fertility rates,the comprehensive two-child policy has not achieved the expected improvements.In order to explore the feasibility of further releasing labor supply under the existing population,scholars have conducted comprehensive and systematic studies on female employment in China from different perspectives,but the following shortcomings still exist in the existing studies.First,from the perspective of research,few studies have been conducted from the perspective of preschool child care practices.Most of the existing studies on child care practices include children who have entered compulsory education and are homogenized,which may result in biased estimates of the impact effects.Second,in terms of research content,most of the existing studies focus on a single child care mode or employment status,and there is a lack of studies that include multiple care modes and cover labor force participation and employment quality,and the analysis of the labor force mechanism of child care mode is not deep enough,and the heterogeneity of the effect is not explored in detail.Third,in terms of data sources,most of the existing studies on the relationship between child care and women’s employment use cross-sectional data or old data before the comprehensive two-child policy,and there is a lack of national micro panel data,which makes the accuracy and validity of research findings insufficient.Fourth,in terms of research methodology,the academic community has mostly adopted the instrumental variable approach to address the endogeneity problem arising from omitted variables and two-way causality,without considering the sample self-selection bias.Based on this,this paper systematically investigates the impact of preschool child care practices on the employment of urban and rural women of childbearing age from two perspectives: labor force participation and employment quality,using three periods of unbalanced panel data from the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)2014,2016,and2018.First,we use panel Probit and panel Tobit models to study the effects of intergenerational care and institutional care on rural non-farm employment(non-farm labor participation,average weekly non-farm labor hours,and annual income from non-farm work)and on urban female employment(including labor participation rate,average weekly labor hours,and annual income from work).Second,we consider the endogeneity of intergenerational care and institutional care,and use village(community)intergenerational care ratio,village(community)institutional care ratio as instruments.(community)institutional care ratio as instrumental variables,and apply 2SLS model,IVProbit model and IVTobit model to correct the baseline results of the effect of preschool child care mode on employment of urban and rural women of childbearing age.Third,replace the propensity score matching method,treatment effect model and quantile regression method,choose balanced panel data,and transform the core explanatory variables and explanatory variables of measures for robustness testing and placebo tests for female spouses.Fourth,combining the characteristics of rural and urban areas,heterogeneity analyses were conducted on the impact of preschool child care practices on the employment of rural and urban women of childbearing age from the perspectives of rural women’s education,workplace,job type,age of children,and regional characteristics,and urban women’s education,unit nature,age of children,and number of children,respectively Fifth,discuss the moderating effects of housing expenditures,increased fertility,and female empowerment;Sixth,analyze the mechanisms underlying the influence of preschool child care practices on the employment of rural and urban women of childbearing age.The following conclusions emerge from the empirical analysis.First,in general,intergenerational care and institutional care have significant positive effects on the employment of both urban and rural women of childbearing age,,but intergenerational care has a greater impact on promoting rural women of childbearing age’s non-agricultural labor participation,working hours,and working income than institutional care,and the two care methods have similar effects on promoting the employment of urban women of childbearing age;As far as the difference between urban and rural areas is concerned,institutional care plays a more important role in increasing the working income of urban women of childbearing age than in increasing the non-agricultural income of rural women of childbearing age.Specifically,intergenerational care and institutional care increased the nonfarm labor force participation rate of rural women of childbearing age by 23.3%-35.6% and16.1%-22.5%,respectively,and increased the average weekly nonfarm labor hours by12.81-20.07 and 10.07-12.20 hours,and increased the annual nonfarm work income by132.6%-133.2% and 70.4%-89.2%,respectively.For urban women of childbearing age,intergenerational care and institutional care increase their labor force participation rates by 16.4%-25.8% and 19.5%-21.0%,respectively,and increase their average weekly labor hours by 10.11-13.03 hours and 10.58-11.52 hours,and increase their annual work income by 184.1%-219.6% and 207.2%-223.2%.Second,the results of the heterogeneity analysis show that,in terms of education level and age of youngest child,intergenerational care has the largest boosting effect on nonfarm employment for rural females with junior high school education and youngest child aged 0-2 years,while institutional care has the largest positive effect on nonfarm employment for rural females with high school education and above and youngest child aged 3-6 years;while for urban females,both types of preschool child care have the largest positive effect on nonfarm employment for those with lower education level and youngest child aged 0-2 years.In addition,combining the characteristics of rural and urban areas,the effects of intergenerational care and institutional care on non-farm employment of rural women of childbearing age were found to be significantly different in terms of workplace,type of work,and regional characteristics,and both types of preschool care had significant effects on the employment of rural women who were"away from home","working",and in the eastern region",and rural women of childbearing age in the eastern region have a greater positive effect on nonfarm employment;while the effects on urban women of childbearing age differ in terms of the nature of the unit and the number of children,both child care practices have a greater positive effect on the employment of urban women of childbearing age who are employed in the non-public sector and have two children.Third,the results of the moderating effect analysis show that rent expenditures expand the positive effect of institutional care on the nonfarm employment of rural migrant women of childbearing age and the positive effect of intergenerational care on the labor force participation of urban migrant women of childbearing age;mortgage expenditures weaken the positive effect of intergenerational care on the nonfarm employment of rural migrant women of childbearing age and also weaken the positive effect of intergenerational care and institutional care on the employment of urban migrant women of childbearing age.The positive effect of increased childbearing on intergenerational care and institutional care on the labor force participation of urban women of childbearing age,and the positive effect of institutional care on the working hours of urban women of childbearing age,but no significant effect on the increase of urban women’s working income by way of preschool child care.Fourth,in terms of the impact mechanism,intergenerational care significantly promotes employment of rural and urban women of childbearing age mainly by significantly reducing the time constraints of women of childbearing age(including time spent on household chores,time spent with children,and reducing the probability of picking up and dropping off children),while institutional care significantly increases the total cost of education(including childcare costs,school fees,books and utensils)and reduces the time spent on household chores of women of childbearing age to increase rural and Urban women of childbearing age are more likely to be employed,but they are also more likely to be diverted from childbearing age by increasing the probability of picking up and dropping off children.The effects of intergenerational financial and time support are more pronounced in rural areas,while the mechanism of preschool education cost plays a greater role in urban areas.Based on these findings,this paper proposes policy recommendations at the government,society,and family levels,respectively.The government should strengthen financial and livelihood support for grandparents who provide intergenerational care,improve the quality of institutional care services,reduce the cost of childbirth,parenting,and education for women,and further improve the employment protection system for women;at the social level,the supply of diversified family care resources can be strengthened through the development of community childcare sites and the increase of market-based care resources,and employers should make flexible employment arrangements tailored to individual needs;and families Families should strengthen fathers’ caregiving responsibilities.