Geographical Access to Childcare and Mothers’ Labour‐force Participation

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the question whether geographical access to institutionalised childcare influences mothers’ labour‐force participation in the Netherlands. The conceptual framework of the paper is based on a time‐geographic perspective of female labour‐force participation. According to this perspective, women are faced with severe day‐to‐day space‐time constraints that form a spatial barrier to labour‐force participation. It is argued that, for many mothers with pre‐school‐age children, access to employment opportunities is partly determined by geographical access to childcare facilities. Using data from the Netherlands Housing Demand survey and a detailed measure of geographical access to childcare, it is shown that, for mothers with young children, the probability of being engaged in paid employment increases as the number of day‐care slots per 100 children in the residential area increases. In the regression model, the effect of access to childcare on mothers’ labour‐force participation is estimated after individual, household, and local labour market characteristics are controlled for.