Trust, child care technology choice and female labor force participation

In this paper we investigate whether trust has an effect on the choice of child care technology and on female labor force participation. Mothers with less trust in others may decide to stay at home with their child instead of working. To do this, we sketch a simple model to show why this effect may be taking place, we measure trust using the European Social Survey and we test its influence on the choice of child care technology. To measure trust, we use the methodology proposed by Spady (Semiparametric methods for the measurement of latent attitudes and the estimation of their behavioural consequences. To measure trust, we use a recent semiparametric item response model. Compared to other measures of trust, using this technique has several advantages: it allows the aggregation of information from several questions and exploits additional information from personal and demographic characteristics. It also imposes very few parametric assumptions. The results show that trust matters for the degree of externalness of the child care technology people choose. It can therefore be a possible explanation for differences in female labor force participation across countries and across sociological groups.