Pablo Celhay, PUC-Escuela de Gobierno

Sala de Postgrado

“Child health insurance, children’s health, and the gender gap in employment”

Coautoreado con Sebastián Martínez y Matías Muñoz

Abstract: This article investigates whether providing access to public health insurance for children reduces the gender gap in employment. We combine the staggered roll-out and an age-specific eligibility rule of a child health insurance program in Mexico to estimate the effects of the program on labor supply choices of children’s mothers and fathers. We find evidence that access to public health insurance increases mother’s labor force participation by 3.2 percentage points (eight percent) – driven by lower educated and single mothers. We find no effects on fathers’ labor supply or flows from formal to the informal sector and that the effects on the mother’s labor supply take up after two years onto the program’s onset. These findings are robust to several specification checks. Improvements in child and mother health, higher demand for daycare and intra-household reallocation of dependent care responsibilities are plausible mechanisms behind increases in mothers’ labor supply.