Antonio Dalla Zuanna (Bank of Italy)
Giulia Bovini, Maria De Paola and Marta De Philippis
This paper studies the effect of temporary school closures on parental labor supply and the gender earnings gap. Using administrative data from INPS covering the near-universe of Italian working parents of children aged 3 to 7, we exploit quasi-random variation in school closure dates arising from moving holidays, teacher strikes, and local elections. We find that school closures significantly increase parental leave take-up, with mothers responding roughly four times more intensively than fathers in magnitude, despite similar percentage-point responses. Within a matched employer-employee framework, we show that each additional day of school closure widens the monthly gender earnings gap by approximately 0.25 percent. Our results suggest that the irregularity of the school calendar is an underappreciated driver of the gender gap in labor market outcomes.