The Heterogeneity Of The Impact Of Childcare On Wage Income For Married Women

"Male-dominated,Female-dominated" family division of labor still occupies a dominant position,under this traditional concept of,married women still bear the main responsibility of childcare.The dual roles of "housekeeping" and "money-maker" make it difficult to balance family and work for married women.The enormous time and energy spent on childcare will reduce the time allocated to market work or leisure.Besides,childcare may also reduce women's effort on work which is not conducive to the accumulation of women's human capital and result in gender wage gap.The opportunity cost of childcare for women will reduce their willingness to marry and have children,which further exacerbate the "low fertility trap" and not conducive to the optimization of population structure.Literatures at home and abroad agree that family care,especially childcare,is the main factor contributing to the decline in the labor participation rate of married women,thus indirectly affecting women's income.Whether it is the impact of family care on women's labor supply,or the impact of childbearing or the number of children on women's labor income,these aspects of research are extremely rich.However,there is still a lack of literature on the combination of the actual participation in childcare with women's labor supply or income.Thus,this paper will be a supplement complementary on this study.In the empirical analysis,based on the mixed cross-sectional data of China's Family Panel Study in 2014 and 2016,this paper explores the heterogeneity of the influence of childcare on married women's wage income from multiple perspectives by methods including mean regression,quantile regression,prospensity score matching,instrumental varible method and treatment effects model to control endogeneity.Step by step,it verifies the difference of the influence of childcare on the wages of women in different income classes and from different areas such as urban and rural areas.Under the background of the comprehensive two-child policy,such an analysis has certain practical significance.The study fond that:(1)under the control of other factors affecting women's wage income,compared with children who are mainly cared for by other members of the family or school,married women whose children are mainly cared for by themselves will have a negative impact on their non-agricultural wage income;(2)the impact of childcare on women's wages from different income classes is different.Women who have higher incomes with higher human capital can get better quality jobs,have greater autonomy and selectivity in working time and childcare time,and the negative impact on wages will also decline;(3)urban areas have more equal gender concept,more secure childcare policies and more accessible market-based childcare services,the opportunity cost of childcare on urban married women is lower than that of rural married women.