Child Care Benefits and Labor Force Participation

Last registered on August 14, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Child Care Benefits and Labor Force Participation
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014147
Initial registration date
August 11, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
August 14, 2024, 2:43 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Valentin Bolotnyy
Affiliation
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Jessica Brown
PI Affiliation
University of South Carolina
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PI Name
Natalia Emanuel
PI Affiliation
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-04-01
End date
2025-12-31
Keywords
Gender, Labor
Additional Keywords
childcare, working parents
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
For many families, finding and paying for child care is an impediment to joining the labor force. Previous research has found that an increase in the availability of child care increases maternal labor force participation, and that a decrease in the cost of child care in the form of child care subsidies increases maternal labor force participation. There is intense policy debate about how to best support access to child care for families, with a variety of policy suggestions from providing subsidies to parents, as suggested by the Build Back Better proposal, to giving support directly to child care providers, as was done in the American Rescue Plan Act. Another lever could be encouraging businesses to provide child care benefits to support their workers. Very little work has been done on this topic, and this project aims to provide evidence on the topic of how such benefits may increase the ability of parents to work outside the home and whether parents find these benefits valuable.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bolotnyy, Valentin, Jessica Brown and Natalia Emanuel. 2024. "Child Care Benefits and Labor Force Participation." AEA RCT Registry. August 14. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14147-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Some respondents were provided with an information intervention before being asked about whether they would take a job at wage X with child care benefits Y. The information intervention was based on responses to the GSS: "In previous surveys of Americans, the vast majority (76%) agree that a working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work."
Intervention Start Date
2024-04-01
Intervention End Date
2024-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Wages at which respondents would accept a job, conditional on different offers of childcare benefits
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Measures of willingness to pay for various workplace child care benefits will be constructed from survey responses on the wages at which respondents would accept a job

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Wages at which respondents would accept a job, conditional on different offers of childcare benefits
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Heterogeneity in WTP for workplace child care benefits by respondent education level, norms, household income, number of children, marital status, gender, race, level of social support, employment status, impediments to working, and by whether the respondent received the information treatment

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We run a survey of households with children to learn about their current work and child care arrangements as well as questions designed to elicit their willingness to pay for workplace child care benefits. That is, how much are employer-sponsored child care benefits worth to them? And for individuals who are not currently in the labor force, we will identify whether employer-provided child care benefits could induce them to enter the labor force. We will also determine whether willingness to pay varies based on where the subsidy can be used – for a licensed child care facility of their choice, for a nanny or babysitter, or at an on-site child care facility. In key points in the survey, we will administer an information treatment that addresses norms related to childcare and labor force participation to better understand how norms affect our measures of willingness to pay.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in Qualtrics based on the Qualtrics random number generator randomly assigning a 1, 2, 3, or 4
Randomization Unit
Unit of randomization is the survey respondent
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
N/A
Sample size: planned number of observations
1000 survey respondents
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
500 survey respondents in the control group (250 with norm questions before WTP, 250 with norm questions after WTP), 500 survey respondents in the treatment group (250 with norm questions before WTP, 250 with norm questions after WTP)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Stanford University Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2024-05-31
IRB Approval Number
73590
IRB Name
University of South Carolina Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2024-01-31
IRB Approval Number
00135084
Analysis Plan