Money for nothing? : universal childcare and maternal hours of work

Abstract

Failure to meet the 2010 female employment target led the European Commission to recommend the introduction of affordable childcare to Malta, with the aim of enticing mothers to enter the labour market. This dissertation is written two years post the introduction of universal fully subsidised childcare, intended to study the programme's effect on maternal hours of work. Data was gathered through the use of questionnaires, which were distributed between November 2015 and January 2016. Using Econometric analysis results show strong evidence for an increase in maternal hours of work post the implementation of this scheme. Through a cross-country comparison, results concluded that Malta's scheme is the most efficient to increase maternal hours of work; where returns are comparable to countries allocating a higher proportion of their GDP on subsidised childcare.