Professor Viviane Sanfelice has published a new paper titled "Public Childcare and Maternal Employment in Brazil" in Labour Economics. Her work examines the impact of formal childcare use on maternal labor market outcomes, combining Brazilian census data with administrative records on public childcare demand and supply in São Paulo.

By exploiting discontinuities in gaps in childcare availability across birth cohorts and neighborhoods, the study finds that access to center-based care significantly increases employment, full-time work and formal sector participation among mothers induced into formal care by public provision. The study also models how new childcare centers could be allocated differently, finding that simpler placement strategies, such as prioritizing lower-income neighborhoods or areas with the greatest unmet need, can achieve about 60% of the employment gains of the ideal allocation.

Congratulations to Professor Sanfelice!