Research On The Effect Of Grandparents’ Care On Married Women’s Non-agricultural Labor Force Participation And Income

As women are both the primary caregivers of children in the household and workers in the labour market,there is a conflict between their roles as mothers and employees,resulting in a key challenge for married women in balancing family and work after the birth of their children.This paper introduces grandparents’ care support as a major form of informal child care,and focuses on the direct impact of grandparents’ care support on married women’s non-agricultural labour force participation and income.Using mixed cross-sectional data from the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)for three periods in 2014,2016 and 2018,this paper firstly selects Probit and OLS models as the underlying regression methods to estimate the effects of grandparents’ care on married women’s non-agricultural labour force participation and non-agricultural income respectively.Secondly,the Heckman sample selection model and the Iv-Probit and Iv-Heckman models combining the instrumental variables approach are used to address the sample selection bias problem and the endogenous problem.Finally,three robustness tests are conducted,including the method of replacing an estimation,the regression after excluding self-employed sample and the regression with urban and rural samples respectively.The results above all indicate that grandparents’care support significantly increases the probability of non-agricultural labour force participation and improves the level of income of married women.Building on existing theory and literature,the paper further considers the interaction of the number of children and the age group of children with grandparents’ care respectively.The results show that an increase in the number of children suppresses the positive contribution of grandparents’ care to married women’s non-agricultural labour force participation,but strengthens the positive contribution of grandparents’ care to married women’s non-agricultural income level;having children aged 0-2 years strengthens the positive contribution of grandparents’ care to married women’s non-agricultural labour force participation and non-agricultural income levels.Based on the findings above,the paper concludes that the positive contribution of grandparents’ care support to married women’s employment is significant.In conclusion,the paper suggests to encourage the development of grandparents’ care,improve the child care system and promote non-agricultural employment condition for married women.