Oferta laboral y demanda de cuidado infantiles en los hogares españoles

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse labour market participation patterns in mothers and fathers of young children in Spain and how they are related to the demand for formal and informal child-care along the economic cycle. To this aim, we explore the Spanish Living Conditions Survey (2005-2015). We simultaneously estimate both parents’ weekly hours in paid work and the time their under three year-old children spend in formal and informal child care. Our results confirm the positive relation between parental labour market participation and the demand for formal and informal care. During the economic crisis this relationship lost relevance in mothers while became more significant amongst fathers. The latter could point at a given degree of commitment in non-employed fathers with child care at home, substituting for non-parental (essentially, informal) child care.