Women participation and caring decisions: do different institutional frameworks matter? A comparison between Italy and The Netherlands

From a classic static model of time allocation with altruism, testable implications relative to the effects of the differences in policy intervention on informal care and participation are derived. Those are then tested by comparing working and informal caring choices in Italy and The Netherlands, two countries that differ deeply in the policy interventions towards adults in need and in the accessibility to part-time working positions. The analysis is conducted by comparing the estimated coefficients of a multivariate dynamic binary probit on informal care provision and participation on a panel sample of working age married women of the two countries. As predicted by the model, results reveal for The Netherlands with respect to Italy a lower negative causal effect of informal care on labour market participation, a lower state dependence in informal caring decisions and a non significant role of income levels in determining caring choices.