| 袁璐璐,罗楚亮,张文杰.健全育幼服务支持体系对高质量就业的促进作用[J].数量经济技术经济研究,2026,(6):81-109 | | 健全育幼服务支持体系对高质量就业的促进作用 | | The Promoting Effect of Improving the Support System for Child Care Service on High-quality Employment | | | | DOI： | | 中文关键词: 育儿设施供给 城镇女性 工资增长 | | 英文关键词: Childcare Facility Supply Urban Female Employees Wage Growth | | 基金项目: | | | 中文摘要: | | 健全育幼服务支持体系对促进人口长期均衡发展与实现高质量就业具有重要作用。企业育儿设施供给作为进一步健全该体系的重要实践，直接影响女性就业福利与职业发展。本文基于中国居民收入分配课题组2023年城镇住户调查数据，采用双重差分识别策略，考察了企业育儿设施供给对女性工资水平的影响。研究发现，企业育儿设施供给显著提升了女性员工工资，且该效应在育儿需求更强、企业福利保障较弱以及居住地附近缺乏托育资源的女性群体中更为突出。机制分析发现，企业育儿设施供给主要通过延长有效劳动供给时间、改善健康水平以及提升专用性人力资本促进女性工资增长。进一步研究显示，企业育儿设施供给有助于缩小性别工资差距。本文研究为生育友好型社会背景下强化企业主体责任、构建多方共担的生育支持体系、促进高质量就业提供了重要的理论参考。 | | 英文摘要: | | Population issues are overarching, strategic matters for economic and social development. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China explicitly stated that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, efforts should be made to “optimize childbirth support policies and incentive measures, develop integrated services for universal childcare and early childhood care, and effectively reduce the costs of childbirth, childcare, and education for families.” As direct users and beneficiaries of human capital, enterprises provide childcare facilities that not only strengthen the childcare support system, but also enhance women’s employment welfare and career development.
Based on data from the 2023 Urban Household Survey conducted by the China Household Income Project (CHIP), this study employs a difference-in-differences identification strategy to examine the impact of enterprise childcare facility provision on women’s wages. The findings show that enterprise childcare facility provision significantly increased the wages of female employees. This effect was more pronounced among women with greater childcare needs (specifically those aged 26~35, holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, already having children, belonging to inter-generational separated families), those with weaker welfare protection (i.e., employees in small enterprises and private firms), and those living in areas lacking nearby childcare resources. The mechanism analysis reveals that enterprise childcare facility provision promoted female wage growth primarily by extending effective labor supply, improving women’s health, and enhancing specific human capital. Further analysis indicates that this provision helped narrow the gender wage gap, although this wage-increasing effect was mainly concentrated among high-income women, while middle-income and low-income women benefited relatively less.
This study contributes to existing literature in relation to three aspects. First, it expands the scope of childcare support research, addressing the gap in existing literature, which largely discusses enterprise welfare issues only at the theoretical level. This is done by focusing on the key dimension of workplace support, and by systematically examining the impact of enterprise childcare facility provision on women’s wages. In this way, this study provides new evidence and theoretical support for the construction of a childcare support system involving the shared responsibilities of families, enterprises, and the government. Second, this study clarifies the micro-level pathways through which enterprise childcare facility provision promotes female wage growth in relation to three dimensions: effective labor supply time, health, and specific human capital accumulation. The findings show that this provision plays a similar role to inter-generational care and public childcare services in alleviating work-family conflicts and improving women’s health. Furthermore, the findings show that enterprise childcare support can also incentivize women to maintain stable long-term employment, facilitating the accumulation of specific human capital through continuous job tenure, thereby providing sustained momentum for wage growth. Third, the findings showed that, although enterprise childcare facility provision helps narrow the gender wage gap, this wage-increasing effect is mainly concentrated among high-income women, while middle-income and low-income women benefit relatively less. This finding allows this study to move beyond the limitations of previous research, which mainly focused on average overall policy effects, suggesting that future childcare support policies need to balance the improvement of women’s overall welfare with the promotion of equity within the group.
This study also has practical implications. First, against the backdrop of economic development and social transformation, and the decline of traditional family-based childcare models, enterprise childcare support can significantly increase women’s wages by sharing childcare costs, thereby promoting women’s career development. This directly validates the importance of enterprise childcare cost-sharing in fully leveraging female human capital, and affirms the positive significance of the establishment of a multi-party childcare support system. Second, the wage-enhancing effect of enterprise childcare facility provision is currently more significant for women with greater childcare needs, including those aged 26~35, those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, those who have given birth, and those in inter-generational separated families. To some extent, this reflects the real childcare pressures faced by these women, who can be regarded as a priority group for enterprise childcare support. Third, the wage-enhancing effect of enterprise childcare facility provision is mainly concentrated among high-income women, while middle-income and low-income women benefit relatively less. This suggests that in the promotion of enterprise childcare support, it is necessary to simultaneously improve complementary policies, such as community-based universal childcare and vocational skills training, to ensure a broader benefit to women across different income groups. | | 查看全文 相关附件： 下载数据代码附录 |
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