The Child Care Labor Market

1992 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Blau
Keyword(s):  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Suhaida Mohd Amin ◽  
Halimahton Borhan ◽  
Abd Rahim Ridzuan ◽  
Rosfadzimi Mat Saad ◽  
Geetha Subramaniam

Individuals who succeed in higher education are supposedly skillful with very high employability rates and predictable career outcomes. In parallel with that, recent statistics show increasing number of female graduates in higher institutions in Malaysia. However, comparing regional estimates of female participation rates in the labor market, Malaysian women have a relatively low participation in labor market for decades. Among the educated women surveyed in 2017, 42 percent were outside the labor force while the married ones said they did not work to look after their children. In this qualitative study, nine educated mothers and three experts in the field were interviewed to find the real problems related to child care. The three validated themes were child care costs, availability of child care centers and child care quality. A quality child care center is usually more expensive. Although many qualified centers have been established, not all meet the needs of discerning educated mothers who can choose not to enter or exit the labor market to look after their children.


2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Feyrer ◽  
Bruce Sacerdote ◽  
Ariel Dora Stern

We seek to explain the differences in fertility rates across high-income countries by focusing on the interaction between the increasing status of women in the workforce and their status in the household, particularly with regards to child care and home production. We observe three distinct phases in women's status generated by the gradual increase in women's workforce opportunities. In the earliest phase, characteristic of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States, women earn low wages relative to men and are expected to shoulder all of the child care at home. As a result, most women specialize in home production and raising children. In an intermediate stage, women have improved (but not equal) labor market opportunities, but their household status lags. Women in this stage are still expected to do the majority of child care and household production. Increasing access to market work increases the opportunity cost of having children, and fertility falls. Female labor force participation increases. Working women in this phase of development have the strongest disincentives to having additional children since the entire burden of child care falls on them. In the final phase of development, women's labor market opportunities begin to equal those of men. In addition, the increased household bargaining power that comes from more equal wages results in much higher (if not gender-equal) male participation in household production. Female labor force participation is higher than in the intermediate phase. The increased participation of men in the household also reduces the disincentives for women to have additional children, and fertility rates rise compared to the intermediate phase. The intermediate, low-fertility phase might describe Japan, Italy, and Spain in the present day, while the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, and the modern-day United States may be entering the final phase. After presenting the empirical evidence, we predict that high-income countries with the lowest fertility rates are likely to see an increase in fertility in the coming decades.


1993 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Blau
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Reiko Ogawa

This chapter discusses the concept of skills in care work and demonstrates how it has been discursively constructed in Japan and Taiwan. The kind of work that the migrant care workers undertake is differentiated according to the migration-care nexus resulting in very different kind of tasks these migrants are required to perform. Secondly, the global care labor market is unevenly constructed with different requirements and conditions. The migrant care workers are differentiated according to the capital they possess and what they acquire in their migration process. What became apparent is that unlike skilled work where people can step-up their career by gaining skills and in some cases permanent residence, care labor market in East Asia does not lead to unilateral development of careers. The global care labor market expanded the opportunity for migrants, but it is not only uneven but also precarious and migrants expect short-term return without great expectations for career development.


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