Social differentials in the effect of formal childcare on the transition to parenthood?: An assessment of varying effects by education, working hours and migration background.

Although the hypothesis that formal childcare reconciles work and family life - and thus stimulates the transition to parenthood - is theoretically well-grounded and partially empirically supported, available literature has hitherto insufficiently acknowledged differential effects by population subgroups. This is remarkable as population subgroups are likely to exhibit different labour market opportunities and opportunity costs of childbearing, varying attitudes toward work-family combination and the use of formal childcare, and differential institutional knowledge with respect to formal childcare. Using unique register-data for the complete residential Belgian population at the turn of the century, this study applies random and fixed effects hazard models to assess varying associations between local childcare availability and dual earner fertility by level of education, working hours and migration background. Results indicate that lagged variation in childcare coverage across and within municipalities over time is positively associated to first birth hazards for all types of dual earner couples. Whereas varying effects by level of education indicate social differentiation in the sense that the positive impact of local childcare coverage is stronger for highly educated couples, differences by working hours and migration background are more limited and insignificant. The Belgian context provides an excellent laboratory to address this topic for two reasons. First, as a result of its top-ranked position with respect to formal childcare during the 2000s, the results are of interest to countries with lower formal childcare coverage. Second, Belgium exhibits considerable social differentials in labour market opportunities, the uptake and benefits of formal childcare.