The effect of subsidized childcare on the supply of informal care: evidence from public kindergarten provision in the US

For informal caregivers in certain demographic groups, the tradeoff between childcare and informal care may be as significant as the tradeoff between informal care and labor supply. We shed light on this tradeoff empirically, by combining detailed time use data with a natural experiment created by differential access to publicly funded kindergarten across households and states. We find a substantial elasticity between informal care supply and kindergarten access, especially for female carers. In fact, for women, kindergarten access appears to largely increase their care supply rather than labor supply.