关键词: 子女随迁, 女性农民工劳动供给, 替代性照料

Abstract: This paper firstly analyses the theoretical mechanism of decision-making on female labor supply of migrant workers, and then employs LPM-2SLS and IV-Tobit model to estimate the causal effects of child migration on female labor participation of migrant workers and hours of work, as well as the moderating effects of alternative childcare. The results show that the labor participation probability of female migrant workers and the logarithm of weekly working hours will be reduced by 40% and 2.485 respectively due to child migration. Furthermore, we find that outsourcing childcare such as kindergartens has a positive moderating effect in significantly increasing the labor supply of migrant mothers, whereas the positive moderating effect of grandparents’childcare on female labor supply is negligible. The insignificant moderating effect arises from the side-effects of providing childcare on grandparents’health, which increase the elderly care burden and offset most positive effects. The policy implication is that developing the relevant policies targeting at offering easier access to alternative childcare and releasing the institutional dividend could weaken the negative effect of child migration on the labor supply of female migrant workers. Meanwhile, for the domestic childcare such as grandparents’childcare, health and medical intervention policies should also be considered simultaneously.

Key words: Child Migration, Female Labor Supply of Migrant Workers, Alternative Childcare