Children’s Educational Enrollment and Maternal Labor Supply
We investigate the impact of a reform in South Africa anticipating children’s entry into
primary school on children’s school enrollment and mothers’ labour supply. We use
Census data and exploit month-of-birth discontinuities and the before/after variation
introduced by the reform. We report a net increase of 7pp. in school attendance at age
5. However, contrary to an established finding in the literature, we find no impact on
mother’s employment and the type of jobs held. We reconcile our finding with those of
previous studies by noting that South Africa is characterized by relatively high initial rates
of school attendance and relatively low rates of maternal employment. In districts where
these contextual factors are more similar to previous studies, we find that higher enrollment
does lead to higher maternal employment.
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- I28, J13, J16