Parental Employment Effects of Switching from Half-Day to Full-Day Kindergarten: Evidence from Ontario’s French Schools

Abstract

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Full-Day Kindergarten: Effects on Maternal Labour Supply

“…These effects are found primarily for nonimmigrant mothers who have a low education level, only one child, and live in an urban area. Our results are consistent with much of the literature reporting stronger maternal labor market effects for single and low-income mothers (Cascio 2009;Fitzpatrick 2010;Havnes and Mogstad 2011;Dhuey, Eid, and Neill 2020).…”

“…Given the policy context of our quasi-experiment-a province with high maternal labor force attachment overall (Cattan 2016)-it may not be surprising that we find smaller and fewer significant effects on labor force outcomes than earlier studies based in the United States. However, our estimated point estimates are very consistent to the findings regarding French-speaking mothers in Ontario and Quebec (Baker, Gruber, and Milligan 2008;Haeck, Lefebvre, and Merrigan 2015;Dhuey, Eid, and Neill 2020). We are not aware of any other studies measuring the effects of full-day kindergarten on material absenteeism from work.…”

“…This paper is the first to report positive effects on maternal labor outcomes of moving from half-day to full-day kindergarten in a large English-speaking education system. Previous research has found only suggestive evidence (e.g., Cannon, Jacknowitz, and Painter 2006;Gibbs 2014) or focused on non-English speaking systems (e.g., Haeck, Lefebvre, and Merrigan 2015;Dhuey, Eid, and Neill 2020). This paper adds to the large body of work on the effects of early education programs on parental labor supply, including literature related to child care subsidies and universal preschool, by providing evidence of the effects of adding additional schooling at the start of primary education.…”

“…Similarly, Haeck, Lefebvre, and Merrigan (2015) found no significant labor market response among parents when full-day kindergarten was introduced in Quebec. However, Dhuey, Eid, and Neill (2020) observed small effects on hours worked from the introduction of full-day kindergarten in the francophone school system in Ontario in the 1990s and early 2000s. Additionally, in a policy paper prepared for the U.S. Department of Labor, Gibbs (2014) focused on changes implemented in the state of Indiana; a triple-difference analysis strategy yielded evidence suggesting an increase in maternal employment.…”

“…10 The full-day universal kindergarten reform in Ontario was rolled out in English Public and English Catholic school boards over a period of five years . Ontario also has approximately 600 French Public and French Catholic schools; these are not included in the present analysis because they had previously implemented fullday kindergarten (Dhuey, Eid, and Neill 2020), but French-language speakers are not excluded from the analysis. The primary objective of the reform was to reduce the number of "at risk" children-that is, children who are identified as having low readiness for school (Pascal 2009).…”