Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School Disruptions
- Autores
- Jaume, David; Willén, Alexander
- Año de publicación
- 2019
- Idioma
- inglés
- Tipo de recurso
- documento de trabajo
- Estado
- versión enviada
- Descripción
- Temporary school closures (TSC) represent a major challenge to policymakers across the globe due to their potential impact on instructional time and student achievement. A neglected but equally important question relates to how such closures affect the labor market behavior of parents. This paper provides novel evidence on the effect of temporary school closures on parental labor market behavior, exploiting the prevalence of primary school teacher strikes across time and provinces in Argentina. We find clear evidence that temporary school closures negatively impact the labor market participation of mothers, in particular lower-skilled mothers less attached to the labor force and mothers in dual-income households who face a lower opportunity cost of dropping out of the labor force. This effect translates into a statistically significant and economically meaningful reduction in labor earnings: the average mother whose child is exposed to ten days of TSCs suffers a decline in monthly labor earnings equivalent to 2.92% of the mean. While we do not find any effects among fathers in general, fathers with lower predicted earnings than their spouses also experience negative labor market effects. This suggests that the parental response to TSCs depend, at least in part, on the relative income of each parent. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggest that the aggregate impact of TSCs on annual parental earnings is more than $113 million, and that the average mother would be willing to forego 1.6 months of labor earnings in order to ensure that there are no TSCs while her child is in primary school.
Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS) - Materia
-
Ciencias Económicas
school disruptions
child care
parents
education
labor market
gender inequality - Nivel de accesibilidad
- acceso abierto
- Condiciones de uso
- http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- Repositorio
- Institución
- Universidad Nacional de La Plata
- OAI Identificador
- oai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/73500
Ver los metadatos del registro completo
id |
SEDICI_ed39f26dacfe7a6e19bef65e2f4da016 |
---|---|
oai_identifier_str |
oai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/73500 |
network_acronym_str |
SEDICI |
repository_id_str |
1329 |
network_name_str |
SEDICI (UNLP) |
spelling |
Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School DisruptionsJaume, DavidWillén, AlexanderCiencias Económicasschool disruptionschild careparentseducationlabor marketgender inequalityTemporary school closures (TSC) represent a major challenge to policymakers across the globe due to their potential impact on instructional time and student achievement. A neglected but equally important question relates to how such closures affect the labor market behavior of parents. This paper provides novel evidence on the effect of temporary school closures on parental labor market behavior, exploiting the prevalence of primary school teacher strikes across time and provinces in Argentina. We find clear evidence that temporary school closures negatively impact the labor market participation of mothers, in particular lower-skilled mothers less attached to the labor force and mothers in dual-income households who face a lower opportunity cost of dropping out of the labor force. This effect translates into a statistically significant and economically meaningful reduction in labor earnings: the average mother whose child is exposed to ten days of TSCs suffers a decline in monthly labor earnings equivalent to 2.92% of the mean. While we do not find any effects among fathers in general, fathers with lower predicted earnings than their spouses also experience negative labor market effects. This suggests that the parental response to TSCs depend, at least in part, on the relative income of each parent. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggest that the aggregate impact of TSCs on annual parental earnings is more than $113 million, and that the average mother would be willing to forego 1.6 months of labor earnings in order to ensure that there are no TSCs while her child is in primary school.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS)2019-03info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaperinfo:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersionDocumento de trabajohttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042info:ar-repo/semantics/documentoDeTrabajoapplication/pdfhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/73500enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/http://www.cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar/wp/wp-content/uploads/doc_cedlas243.pdfinfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/1853-0168info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)reponame:SEDICI (UNLP)instname:Universidad Nacional de La Platainstacron:UNLP2025-09-29T11:12:26Zoai:sedici.unlp.edu.ar:10915/73500Institucionalhttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/Universidad públicaNo correspondehttp://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/oai/snrdalira@sedici.unlp.edu.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:13292025-09-29 11:12:27.053SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Platafalse |
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv |
Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School Disruptions |
title |
Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School Disruptions |
spellingShingle |
Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School Disruptions Jaume, David Ciencias Económicas school disruptions child care parents education labor market gender inequality |
title_short |
Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School Disruptions |
title_full |
Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School Disruptions |
title_fullStr |
Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School Disruptions |
title_full_unstemmed |
Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School Disruptions |
title_sort |
Oh Mother: The Neglected Impact of School Disruptions |
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv |
Jaume, David Willén, Alexander |
author |
Jaume, David |
author_facet |
Jaume, David Willén, Alexander |
author_role |
author |
author2 |
Willén, Alexander |
author2_role |
author |
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv |
Ciencias Económicas school disruptions child care parents education labor market gender inequality |
topic |
Ciencias Económicas school disruptions child care parents education labor market gender inequality |
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv |
Temporary school closures (TSC) represent a major challenge to policymakers across the globe due to their potential impact on instructional time and student achievement. A neglected but equally important question relates to how such closures affect the labor market behavior of parents. This paper provides novel evidence on the effect of temporary school closures on parental labor market behavior, exploiting the prevalence of primary school teacher strikes across time and provinces in Argentina. We find clear evidence that temporary school closures negatively impact the labor market participation of mothers, in particular lower-skilled mothers less attached to the labor force and mothers in dual-income households who face a lower opportunity cost of dropping out of the labor force. This effect translates into a statistically significant and economically meaningful reduction in labor earnings: the average mother whose child is exposed to ten days of TSCs suffers a decline in monthly labor earnings equivalent to 2.92% of the mean. While we do not find any effects among fathers in general, fathers with lower predicted earnings than their spouses also experience negative labor market effects. This suggests that the parental response to TSCs depend, at least in part, on the relative income of each parent. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggest that the aggregate impact of TSCs on annual parental earnings is more than $113 million, and that the average mother would be willing to forego 1.6 months of labor earnings in order to ensure that there are no TSCs while her child is in primary school. Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS) |
description |
Temporary school closures (TSC) represent a major challenge to policymakers across the globe due to their potential impact on instructional time and student achievement. A neglected but equally important question relates to how such closures affect the labor market behavior of parents. This paper provides novel evidence on the effect of temporary school closures on parental labor market behavior, exploiting the prevalence of primary school teacher strikes across time and provinces in Argentina. We find clear evidence that temporary school closures negatively impact the labor market participation of mothers, in particular lower-skilled mothers less attached to the labor force and mothers in dual-income households who face a lower opportunity cost of dropping out of the labor force. This effect translates into a statistically significant and economically meaningful reduction in labor earnings: the average mother whose child is exposed to ten days of TSCs suffers a decline in monthly labor earnings equivalent to 2.92% of the mean. While we do not find any effects among fathers in general, fathers with lower predicted earnings than their spouses also experience negative labor market effects. This suggests that the parental response to TSCs depend, at least in part, on the relative income of each parent. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggest that the aggregate impact of TSCs on annual parental earnings is more than $113 million, and that the average mother would be willing to forego 1.6 months of labor earnings in order to ensure that there are no TSCs while her child is in primary school. |
publishDate |
2019 |
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv |
2019-03 |
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaper info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersion Documento de trabajo http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042 info:ar-repo/semantics/documentoDeTrabajo |
format |
workingPaper |
status_str |
submittedVersion |
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv |
http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/73500 |
url |
http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/73500 |
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv |
eng |
language |
eng |
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/http://www.cedlas.econo.unlp.edu.ar/wp/wp-content/uploads/doc_cedlas243.pdf info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/1853-0168 |
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
eu_rights_str_mv |
openAccess |
rights_invalid_str_mv |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv |
application/pdf |
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv |
reponame:SEDICI (UNLP) instname:Universidad Nacional de La Plata instacron:UNLP |
reponame_str |
SEDICI (UNLP) |
collection |
SEDICI (UNLP) |
instname_str |
Universidad Nacional de La Plata |
instacron_str |
UNLP |
institution |
UNLP |
repository.name.fl_str_mv |
SEDICI (UNLP) - Universidad Nacional de La Plata |
repository.mail.fl_str_mv |
alira@sedici.unlp.edu.ar |
_version_ |
1844615994670055424 |
score |
13.070432 |