As a policy tool aimed at raising parental labor supply, childcare subsidies come with high expectations. Using data from a factorial survey conducted in the City of Bern, Switzerland, we examine whether childcare subsidies reach their goal. Because of the simultaneity of the decision to take up a job and arranging childcare, we experimentally alter hypothetical income (e.g., gross earnings from a job, income from other sources) as well as aspects of the childcare setting including subsidy levels. Using an alternative-specific conditional logit model, we show that subsidies have the expected effect of increasing parents’ labor supply. Moreover, the results from simulations based on the estimated utility function show that varying subsidy levels have different effects on subgroups of parents. Subsidies are especially efficient in raising the labor supply of low-status parents, and especially for women. We also find that subsidies already have the desired effect at 25% of total childcare costs and that the marginal utility of higher subsidy levels decreases beyond that threshold. Subsidies covering 25% of the total costs for childcare lead to an approximately 2 h per week increase in the labor supply of women.

作为旨在增加父母劳力供应的政策工具，育儿补贴寄予厚望。利用在瑞士伯尔尼市进行的析因调查得出的数据，我们研究了育儿补贴是否达到了目标。由于决定同时从事工作和安排托儿服务，我们在实验上更改了假设收入（例如，工作总收入，其他来源的收入）以及托儿服务设置的各个方面，包括补贴水平。使用替代特定条件的logit模型，我们表明补贴具有增加父母的劳动力供应的预期效果。此外，基于估计效用函数的模拟结果表明，不同的补贴水平对父母的亚组有不同的影响。补贴在提高低地位父母尤其是妇女的劳动力供应方面特别有效。我们还发现，补贴已达到预期的儿童保育总费用的25％，并且较高的补贴水平的边际效用降低到该阈值以上。补贴占儿童保育总费用的25％，导致妇女的劳动力供应每周增加约2小时。