Table 3: Impacts of partial school reopening on respondent childcare hours and child agricultural labor

|||Re|spondent|Childcare H|ours||C<br>Ag.|hild<br> Hours|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|(8)|
|Post|0.253|6.414|-6.786|-10.657|1.995|5.817|0.829|0.744|
||(6.443)|(9.764)|(9.798)|(13.736)|(12.157)|(17.687)|(1.084)|(2.862)|
|Post _×_ Treat|0.461|-0.575|-5.972|-11.648|-3.170|-6.997|-1.480<sup>_∗∗_</sup>|-2.635|
||(5.032)|(6.922)|(6.960)|(10.601)|(9.311)|(16.262)|(0.739)|(1.758)|
|Post _×_ Any child age 0-4|||17.426<br>(13.770)|49.104<sup>_∗∗_</sup><br>(23.043)|||||
|Post _×_ Treat _×_ Any child age 0-4|||8.394<br>(11.204)|39.520<sup>_∗∗_</sup><br>(19.482)|||||
|Post _×_ Any child age 0-8|||||0.670|5.050||-0.636|
||||||(14.686)|(23.237)||(3.125)|
|Post _×_ Treat _×_ Any child age 0-8|||||5.729<br>(11.563)|9.185<br>(18.999)||1.715<br>(1.992)|
|Observations|3073|1722|3073|1722|3073|1722|3077|3077|
|Control Mean|52.743|59.905|52.743|59.905|52.743|59.905|3.848|3.848|
|Adult Sex|Both|Women|Both|Women|Both|Women|-|-|

This table presents estimates of Equation 1 for respondent childcare hours (columns 1-6) and total household child agriculture hours (columns 7-8). Dependent variables are defined over the last 7 days. Childcare hours are not measured for household adults besides the respondent in these survey rounds. Households not engaged in agriculture are coded as having 0 child agriculture hours. Observations include data from May to November 2020, and include treatment households with children in grades 4 or 8 (indicated by ’Treat’), control households with children in an adjacent grade, and ‘mixed’ households with both (results not shown). ’Post’ is a dummy for being observed on or after the partial school reopening on October 12. Regressions include household and county by month fixed effects, and additional household and individual controls. SEs clustered at household level. * _p <_ 0 _._ 1, ** _p <_ 0 _._ 05, *** _p <_ 0 _._ 01 schools fully reopen (Figure 2) and likely provided more during school closures. Though childcare needs could fall after the partial reopening in households without younger children in the home still requiring large amounts of care, if the sibling returning to school was a net provider of childcare this could increase adult childcare hours. Given what we observe about the role of siblings and economies of scale in childcare in the sample, children in grades 4 and 8 (typically around age 9 and 13) are likely net providers of childcare when home from school in households with younger children. Their return to school would thus _increase_ the childcare burden on adults. In households without younger children, the return to school of these students would instead decrease that burden.

Columns 3-6 of Table 3 support this, showing increased childcare hours for treated adults with young children and decreases for those without.<sup>15</sup> Differences are more pronounced by the presence of below-school-age children (ages 0-4) than by the presence of younger children more generally (ages 0-8), consistent with much higher childcare needs of very young children.

Labor supply effects of the partial school reopening by presence of below-school-age children are consistent with these childcare differences: positive impacts of the partial school reopening are

> 15. Control adults—particularly women—with young children also increase childcare hours following reopening. We suspect this reflects a general household reallocation of childcare responsibilities toward women during the harvest period which coincides with the reopening.

16