IESET.
Hypotheses·labour·capacity_childcare_spending_female_lfp_housing_cost

Public childcare and family benefits raise female labour-force participation and fertility only when housing costs and childcare supply constraints are not binding; high transfers without supply expansion have weaker fertility/LFP effects.

PARTIALengine/runs/capacity_childcare_spending_female_lfp_housing_cost

PARTIAL — coef=+1.237, p=0.427 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

confidence cueThe result is useful, but not decisive. Treat it as a clue, not a settled conclusion.

policy briefMixed or noisy

In ordinary language

In plain terms, this asks whether childcare spending income is actually linked to better or worse female labor force participation from 1990 to 2024.

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. coef=+1.237, p=0.427 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

why it matters

Labor-market rules often help some workers while risking job loss or slower hiring for others. This test looks for that tradeoff in observable employment or unemployment data.

how the test works

It compares 1 country or place units from 1990 to 2024, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Childcare spending income
What we checked
  • Female labor force participation
what this does not prove

A single test is not the whole truth. It narrows the claim under a specific sample, time period, and method. Strong policy conclusions need the pattern to survive nearby tests, alternative data, and serious objections.

verification

No evidence packet has been generated yet.

Results

engine/runs/capacity_childcare_spending_female_lfp_housing_cost
1007550250199020072024OECD
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show female_labor_force_participation across 1 sampled countries over 1990–2024.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for capacity_childcare_spending_female_lfp_housing_cost. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/capacity_childcare_spending_female_lfp_housing_cost/chart_data.json.

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

17 schools list this hypothesis as a test of their position. The chips below are school-level scoreboard outcomes, not a second hypothesis verdict.

hypothesis verdict vs scoreboard outcome

The banner verdict judges this hypothesis as written. The scoreboard asks whether each school's polarity-corrected prediction was right. Raw status is not a school win: SUPPORTED supports schools that needed SUPPORTED, but refutes schools that needed REFUTED.

Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callChicago School Monetarismwins if MIXEDpartial/no-callClassical Liberalwins if MIXEDpartial/no-callDegrowth / Ecological Macroeconomicswins if MIXEDpartial/no-callDemocratic Socialism (Bernsteinian revisionism + modern)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callStructuralist / Developmentalistwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callEco-Socialism / Red-Greenwins if MIXEDpartial/no-callEmpirical Pragmatist (the framework's house position)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callNew Institutional Economicswins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarket Socialism (Lange-Lerner tradition)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarxian Political Economywins if MIXEDpartial/no-callMarxism-Leninism (central-planning implementation)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callModern Monetary Theorywins if MIXEDpartial/no-callNew Keynesian (mainstream synthesis)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callOrdoliberalism (Freiburg School)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callPost-Keynesianwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callSocial Democraticwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit dcd2199 · 2026-05-22T22:28:02Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:53:30Z

Public childcare and family benefits raise female labour-force participation and fertility only when housing costs and childcare supply constraints are not binding; high transfers without supply expansion have weaker fertility/LFP effects.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

SUPPORTED if the primary treatment coefficient has the pre-registered + sign at p<=0.10 with minimum sample gates. REFUTED if the coefficient has the opposite sign at p<=0.10. Otherwise PARTIAL; missing data or failed sample gates are INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING.

formal test & threshold
test:      panel_fe_capacity_childcare_spending_female_lfp_housing_cost
threshold: [object Object]

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
1 countries · 1990 – 2024
Evidence type
associational

Alias-batch panel fixed effects screen. The proxy source is explicitly local and runnable, but exact policy semantics should be upgraded before scoreboard conversion.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
female_labor_force_participation
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZStier 2
level
childcare_spending_gdp
treatment
oecd:DSD_SOCXtier 2
level_lagged_one_year
log_gdp_pc
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log
trade_openness
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level
government_effectiveness
control
wgi:GE.ESTtier 4
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — capacity_childcare_spending_female_lfp_housing_cost

Verdict: PARTIAL — coef=+1.237, p=0.427 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Public childcare and family benefits raise female labour-force participation and fertility only when housing costs and childcare supply constraints are not binding; high transfers without supply expansion have weaker fertility/LFP effects.
  • Falsification rule: SUPPORTED if the primary treatment coefficient has the pre-registered + sign at p<=0.10 with minimum sample gates. REFUTED if the coefficient has the opposite sign at p<=0.10. Otherwise PARTIAL; missing data or failed sample gates are INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING.
  • Falsification test: panel_fe_capacity_childcare_spending_female_lfp_housing_cost

Estimate

  • Method: linearmodels.PanelOLS
  • Coefficient (treatment): +1.237
  • Std error: 1.555
  • p-value: 0.427
  • Observations: 724, countries: 32
  • Within R²: 0.117
  • Fixed effects: entity=True, time=True
  • Clustering: country

Variables resolved

  • world_bank_wdi:SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS → female_labor_force_participation (outcome, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=8302)
  • oecd:DSD_SOCX@DF_SOCX_AGG → childcare_spending_gdp (treatment, publisher=oecd, n=1414)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → log_gdp_pc (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=12104)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → trade_openness (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=10714)
  • wgi:GE.EST → government_effectiveness (controls, publisher=wgi, n=5168)

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:53:30+00:00

Strongest opposing argument

Every hypothesis ships with its charitable opposing argument. The framework earns credibility by handling objections at their strongest, not weakest.

Notes

Source shard: engine/audits/swarm_2026-05-22_200_hypotheses_worker_C_state_capacity_mixed.md. Backlog source families: not specified. Alias proxy used: oecd:DSD_SOCX@DF_SOCX_AGG -> world_bank_wdi:SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS. Initial promotion pass left scoreboard mapping empty; mapped by the 2026-05-22 swarm scoreboard conversion v1.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.