Grandmothers and the gender gap in the Mexican labor market

This paper estimates the effect of childcare availability on parents’ employment probability using the timing of the grandmothers’ death – the primary childcare provider in Mexico – as identifying variation. I use a triple-difference to disentangle the effect of coinhabiting grandmothers’ deaths due to their impact on childcare from their effects due to alternative mechanisms. Through their impact on childcare availability, grandmothers’ deaths reduce mothers’ employment rate by 12 percentage points (27 percent) and do not affect fathers’ employment rate. The negative effect on mothers’ employment is smaller where public daycare is more available, or private daycare or schools are more affordable. [Display omitted] •Grandmothers are prevalent sources of childcare across the globe.•The grandmother’s death reduces mothers’ employment rate by 12 percentage points.•A triple-difference disentangles the effect through childcare from other mechanisms.•Smaller effect on mothers’ employment where public daycare is more available.•Smaller effect on mothers’ employment where private daycare is more affordable.