Outcomes of Jobs Education Training (JET) Child Care Fee Recipients

Families with young children face considerable challenges when they combine family responsibilities and market work. Parents, and particularly mothers and single mothers, show lower labour force participation rates and employment, work fewer hours and have lower wages than the overall population. Single mothers are also considerably more likely to depend on income support payments. This labour market phenomenon can be explained, at least partly, by child care constraints. If child care is not available or too expensive, work or education activities that increase future earnings and employment prospects are difficult to undertake. Jobs, Education and Training Child Care Fee Assistance (JETCCFA) aims to assist families with the cost of child care, to effectively reduce the opportunity costs of investments in labour market skills. The policy goal is to reduce the barriers that parents face when they want to engage in education or training that facilitate a transition to work for those parents who currently rely on income support.

The objective of this project is to investigate i) whether the policy scheme reaches the population it is targeted at and whether it is utilised by those parents who are likely to benefit from the program the most, and ii) whether it is effective in facilitating transitions off income support and into work.

The final report is currently scheduled to be completed in November 2013.

The Melbourne Institute contact for this project is Dr Barbara Hanel.