Home work: Exploring the labor market effects of subsidizing domestic services
利用比利时行政数据，首次评估了补贴家政服务对劳动力市场的影响，发现该政策显著增加了女性就业和整体就业率，但也导致工作失能率上升。
• Subsidies for the domestic services sector are an increasingly popular policy to create employment opportunities for low-skilled workers. • This paper provides the first evaluation of the effects of subsidizing domestic services. • We find that the implementation of domestic service subsidies in Belgium led to a strong and lasting increase in female employment in subsidized industries. • Our findings also show that the subsidy had a positive effect on overall employment and reduced unemployment, participation in other social welfare programs, and inactivity. • We document unintended increases in work incapacity as a result of the policy, likely due to the fact it broadened the population that can access the social safety net. This paper analyzes subsidies for the domestic services sector, an increasingly popular policy to create employment opportunities for low-skilled workers. Using Belgian administrative data, a differences-in-differences approach, and a shift-share instrumental variable, we estimate the local effects of the policy in targeted industries as well as overall effects on the labor market. We find that domestic service subsidies can increase female employment in the subsidized industries as well as the overall employment rate. This increase in employment is primarily driven by an increase in (formal) labor market participation and, to a lesser extent, a reduction in the rate of participation in unemployment insurance and in other social welfare programs. We also find that these subsidies can lead to an increase in the rate of work incapacity, likely due to the fact they broaden the population that can access the social safety net.