Ylenia Brilli (Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
Francesco Andreoli, Simona Fiore and Lucia Schiavon
This paper investigates the impact of a large-scale childcare expansion policy in Italy, the Piano Straordinario per lo Sviluppo dei Servizi per la Prima Infanzia (PSSSPI), on parental labor supply and childcare arrangements. By exploiting the staggered implementation of the reform across regions and municipalities, we employ a difference-in-differences framework to identify the effects of increased early childhood care (ECC) availability. Using both original survey data and data from the Italian Labour Force Survey, we find that the policy significantly increased maternal participation in the labor market and employment. Our results further reveal that while the expansion increased the use of public ECC services and reduced reliance on maternal and grand-parental care, it also led to an increased use of non-family caregivers, suggesting persistent incompatibilities between ECC opening hours and full-time work schedules.