In tight labour markets, where employers compete not only on wages but also on amenities such as job family friendliness, employer-provided childcare arrangements serve as a powerful tool to attract and retain working parents. Yet little causal evidence exists on how employees evaluate such benefits. Therefore, this study uses a scenario experiment among working parents of young children to examine how job attractiveness is shaped by variations in employer-provided childcare arrangements – in terms of location, opening hours, and price – along with the possibility of teleworking. Our results show that all forms of employer-provided childcare increase job attractiveness, with childcare facilities operating on schedules explicitly aligned with employees’ working hours having the strongest effects. Working parents are willing to forego a 20% wage increase in a new job to obtain this latter amenity. They expect such amenity to improve their job satisfaction, performance, stress management, and work–family balance. Our results imply that the policy offers mutual gains for both employees and employers.
Haj, M. E., Moens, E., Verhofstadt, E., Ootegem, L. V., & Baert, S. (2026). How Job Attractiveness Is Shaped by Employer-Provided Childcare Arrangements. IZA Discussion Paper, 18430.
Chicago
Morien El Haj, Eline Moens, Elsy Verhofstadt, Luc Van Ootegem, and Stijn Baert. "How Job Attractiveness Is Shaped by Employer-Provided Childcare Arrangements." IZA Discussion Paper, No. 18430 (2026).
Harvard
Haj, M. E., Moens, E., Verhofstadt, E., Ootegem, L. V., and Baert, S., 2026. How Job Attractiveness Is Shaped by Employer-Provided Childcare Arrangements. IZA Discussion Paper, 18430.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.