Citation

Nazarov Z. Appl. Econ. Lett. 2019; 26(20): 1659-1663.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13504851.2019.1591588

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

I assess whether the results of child achievement tests affect maternal employment and the child-care choices of mothers with prekindergarten children. To test this hypothesis, I use a quasi-structural approach to form approximations to the mother's employment and child-care decision rules and jointly estimate them with the child cognitive development production function and wage equation. Using a sample of single mothers from the NLSY79, I find evidence that maternal employment and child-care decisions are sensitive to past achievement scores. In particular, a mother whose child has taken the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test before entering kindergarten and whose child's standardized test score is above a certain threshold intends to use childcare more and work more part-time hours immediately after observing the child's performance on the achievement test.

Language: en

Keywords

C35; child cognitive development; child-care; J13; J22; Maternal input choices; simulated maximum likelihood; simultaneous equations