For full article access: doi.org/10.1108/IJSE...

📌Policy implications: To boost female labor force participation, subsidies must account for informal care markets and cultural barriers. Addressing these factors is crucial in contexts like Turkey.

🌍 Compared to studies in developed countries, where childcare subsidies often boost maternal employment, the Turkish context differs. Here, informal childcare markets and cultural dynamics play a stronger role.

🤔 Why no significant response? The study highlights several factors:
1️⃣ Extensive informal childcare arrangements in Turkey (e.g., grandmothers' support).
2️⃣ Cultural norms emphasizing women’s caregiving roles.
3️⃣ ⁠Potential crowding out of private childcare options.

🔍 Key findings:
1️⃣ For married mothers, the reform had no significant effect on labor supply.
2️⃣ For single mothers, while the effects were positive, they were statistically insignificant—possibly due to small sample sizes.

⚙️ Using the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) methodology and data from Turkey’s Household Labour Force Surveys (2011–2014), we examined the causal impact of this reform on maternal employment.

📚 The reform can be viewed as an indirect childcare subsidy, allowing children as young as 60 months to enroll in primary school. While the policy did not explicitly aim to reduce mothers’ caregiving burden, it may have a potential labor supply effect on mothers.