Abstract

Access to suitable and affordable childcare is a prerequisite for labour force participation for manymothers. We use data from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study to investigate howlack of access to childcare affects mothers’ work in New Zealand, a nation with high-quality butexpensive childcare. We find many mothers whose young children are not in childcare due to a lackof access report being prevented from working by childcare access issues. However, just over a fifthof mothers whose children are not in care due to access issues do work, and some mothers whosechildren are in care still report they are unable to work due to childcare issues. By combininginformation on mothers’ work status and reasons for not working with earnings data for workingmothers of young children, we estimate New Zealand mothers with children under age three whoare not working only because they can’t access childcare may be foregoing $116 million or more ofwages each year.

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Citation

Benison, T., & Sin, I. (2023). The wage cost of a lack of access to affordable childcare in Aotearoa New Zealand. MOTU working paper 23-02. https://motu-www.motu.org.nz/wpapers/23_02.pdf

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