Self-employment and providing child care

Abstract

This paper considers self-employment and providing child care as occupational strategies that can lower the cost of child care. If the ability to care for one's own children while engaged in market work is important to mothers with young children, we predict that women with young children will be more likely to choose to be self-employed or to be a child care provider than women without young children. The analysis provides strong support for this hypothesis. The results show that the presence of young children is an important factor in choosing self-employment and in choosing to be a child care provider. Finally, simulations are presented which show that a woman's choice among these sectors is quite sensitive to the number and ages of her young children.

The Asset Portfolios of Native-Born and Foreign-Born Households

“…Moreover, sole parents also have more equity in businesses than equally wealthy single individuals without children at home. This is consistent with previous evidence that the number of children at home is positively related to the probability that a women is self-employed (Connelly 1992 …”

Food Security, Gender, and Occupational Choice among Urban Low-Income Households

“…These studies demonstrate the blurring of boundaries between the notions of 'choice' and 'constraint', which is contrary to the approach made in standard choice theoretic occupational choice models such as those by Marcoullier et al (1997) and Maloney (1999) emphasize. The study by Connelly (1992), for example, makes use of US panel data to demonstrate that women with young children are more likely to choose to be self-employed or to be a child care provider than women without children. 5 Given the nature of constraint that young children place on women's employment, "the simple choice between being employed and not being employed may mask important aspects of the decision regarding participation."…”

Exploring the childless universe: Profiles of women and men without children in Italy

“…Recent fertility research suggests that self-employed people should be treated as a distinct group. The incidence of childlessness is low amongst self-employed women because the flexibility of self-employment makes it easier to reconcile family and work obligations (Boden 1999;Connelly 1992;Köppen, Mazuy, and Toulemon 2017). In the case of men, previous research has consistently shown that socioeconomically disadvantaged men, such as the unemployed or those in low-paid jobs, are the most likely to remain childless (Berrington 2017;Keizer, Dykstra, and Poortman 2010;Parr 2010), whilst self-employed men are the least likely (Köppen, Mazuy, and Toulemon 2017).…”