Paid childcare leave, fertility, and female labor supply in South Korea

Abstract

We consider the effects of a paid childcare leave subsidy on maternal behavior in South Korea using a difference-in-difference design and a fertility survey with information on conception, contraception, and labor supply arrangements. Childcare subsidies increased conception and decreased contraception. The arc elasticities of the responses of conception and contraception to the childcare subsidy are 0.65 and -0.10, respectively. However, we do not find effects on employment arrangements. In a country with the lowest total fertility rate in the world and that often performs middling in rankings of gender inequality, we conclude that paid childcare leave for working women confers some positive benefits.

Spatial Diversity and Impact of Selected Factors on Women’s Labour Force Participation Rate in Poland during 2000–2020

“…In the case of social transfers, any increase in this factor will hurt the female labour market. The current study confirms the findings of other researchers [52,[69][70][71][72]. An increase in social transfers of, for example, PLN 1000, can cause as much as 49% of the total working female population to withdraw from the labour market.…”

“…The multifaceted discrimination against women that is present in the economy does not serve sustainable development [2,44]. Governments, recognising the ineffectiveness of measures in this area, determined by many factors that are sometimes beyond the control of those in power, are trying to establish the determinants of greater labour force participation of women on the one hand and to support women in their maternal duties on the other [52].…”

Causal Analysis of Policy Effects on Fertility

“…Similarly, there is little causal evidence on the efficacy of parental leave policies on fertility in the Asian context (Thomas et al 2022). First, while parental leave has been generally available in this context, the uptake rates have stayed substantially lower, compared to the other western countries due to social norms resulting in low female labor force participation and unequal gender division of childcare (Lee 2022;Myong et al 2021). Second, the countries with low fertility rates have recently reformed their parental leave policies and seen an untick in the uptake.…”

“…Second, the countries with low fertility rates have recently reformed their parental leave policies and seen an untick in the uptake. One exception is Kim et al (2022), who estimated the causal effect by leveraging the expansion of paid maternity leave benefits in 2011 in South Korea. Prior to the reform, working mothers received 500 USD regardless of their income.…”

“…In the Nordic countries, parental leave reforms have happened in small increments, so that the total policy effect likely exceeds the estimated reform effect substantially (Dahl et al 2016;Liu and Skans 2010). Studies of more substantial policy changes in Central Europe and South Korea suggest substantial positive effects on fertility (Girsberger et al 2023;Lalive and Zweimüller 2009;Kim et al 2022;Raute 2019). Effects are comparable across country contexts.…”