Are states created equal? Moving to a state with more expensive childcare reduces mothers’ odds of employment

Abstract

Married mothers who relocate are less likely to be employed after an interstate move than married childless women and nonmobile mothers. Here, we ask whether moving to a state with more expensive childcare is associated with lower odds of maternal employment among mothers who had been employed prior to relocation. We use hierarchical binomial logistic regression models, combining data from the 2015 Amer­i­can Community Survey five-year sam­ple and state-level childcare costs to as­sess mar­ried moth­ers’ em­ploy­ment fol­low­ing an in­ter­state move, con­trol­ling for states’ economic conditions. We show that employment odds for married mothers were about 42% lower than those for childless m..