Heterogeneous effects of school reopenings on the labor supply of parents of young school-age children

Like most countries, the Chilean government closed schools as part of its pandemic public health mandates. In this paper, we study the impact of central planner variation in school reopenings on parental labor supply focusing on the initial three months after schools partially reopened. Mothers' labor force participation decreased by 5.1 percentage points (ppts) one month after reopening relative to mothers near closed schools and decreased by 9.5 ppts among householder mothers. Two or three months later, mothers who remained in the labor force saw a minimal increase in their ability to actively work and, more specifically, to work in informal jobs. The labor force participation of fathers increased anywhere from 2.0 to 2.9 ppts and by as much as 10.7 ppts for non-householder fathers. Unplanned care interruptions during school reopening had differential effects on parental labor supply. Our findings support a theory that parental labor supply is sensitive to childcare transitions both in terms of gender and the householder status of the parent.