The Effect of Longer Maternal Care on Children’s Occupation Choices
Published in CERGE-EI Working Paper, 2024
Awards:
- 2025, Royal Economic Society: Best Conference Poster Prize
- 2024, Czech Economic Society: Honourable Recognition by the President for an Excellent Paper award
- 2023, Charles University Grant Agency: funding awarded
Abstract
This paper investigates whether a mother's extended provision of full-time childcare shapes her children's preferences for occupation choices. I analyze a natural experiment in the Czech Republic that extended parental allowances by one year. This induced many mothers to remain out of the workplace and caused them to face a higher likelihood of long-term unemployment. This shift reinforced a more traditional, mother-as-homemaker dynamic within households. Using a regression discontinuity design, I measure their children's later occupational preferences via their university applications. I find that boys who were exposed to the reform during early childhood were 20% less likely to apply to stereotypically feminine fields in adulthood, with no corresponding effect observed for girls. I examine potential channels and find no evidence that the reform altered children's academic ability or their preferences for research- and mathematics-oriented tracks. The results are consistent with the interpretation that longer exposure to a stay-at-home mother can reduce boys' openness to nurturing- and care-oriented careers. This study provides the first causal evidence that the duration of maternal care can influence gender-specific occupational choices.
Presented at: (2025) EWMES (Nicosia), 4th International Workshop on Migration and Family Economics (Paris), RES Annual Conference (Birmingham); (2024) Dissertation Workshop at CERGE-EI (Prague), 3rd Rare Voices in Economics Conference (Geneva), 3rd NSE PhD and Postdoc Workshop (Naples), PhD seminars at the University of Copenhagen and CEBI, lunch seminars (Copenhagen), 49th SAEe (Palma de Mallorca), Danish Graduate Programme in Economics network workshop 2024 (Middelfart)