Authors
Abstract
Like most countries, the Chilean government closed schools as part of its pandemic public health mandates in order to restrict social-contact activities and reduce disease spread. We study the impact of central planner variation in school re-openings on parental labor supply, focusing on the initial three months after schools partially re-opened. We find that mothers’ labor force participation (LFP) decreased by 5.1 percentage points (ppts) one month after re-opening relative to mothers near closed schools. It decreased 9.5 ppts among householder mothers. These magnitudes weakened over time. Two or three months out, mothers who stayed in the labor force saw minimal increase in their ability to actively work and, more specifically, to work in informal jobs. In contrast, fathers’ LFP immediately increased anywhere from 2.0 to 2.9 ppts. Unplanned care disruptions during the re-opening of schools, an artifact of quarantine policies related to sickness and exposure, had differential effects on parental labor supply. Our findings support a theory that parental labor supply is uniquely sensitivity to the care transitions of children both in terms of gender and the householder status of the parent. Policies that encourage consistency in care transitions would largely benefit mothers’ ability to stay engaged in the labor force and advance in paid jobs and careers, especially when they are the householder.