The Economic Impacts of Childcare for Men, Women and Children
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (CST)
- Chair: Alessandra Voena, Stanford University
The Effects of Childcare on Women and Children: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Burkina Faso
Abstract
We study whether providing affordable childcare improves women's economic empowerment and child development, using data from a sample of 1,990 women participating in a public works program in Burkina Faso. Out of 36 urban work sites, 18 were randomly selected to receive community-based childcare centers. One in four women offered the centers use them, tripling childcare center usage for children aged 0 to 6. Women's employment and financial outcomes improve. Additionally, child development scores increase. However, we find no significant effects on women's decision-making autonomy, gender attitudes, or intrahousehold dynamics, suggesting the importance of considering multiple dimensions of childcare impacts.Childcare, Labor Supply, and Business Development: Experimental Evidence from Uganda
Abstract
Access to childcare is key to maternal employment in high-income countries. We know very little, however, about its effects on households in low-income contexts, and about the cost-effectiveness of subsidizing it. We randomly offer mothers of three- to-five-year-old children in Uganda a childcare subsidy or an equivalent cash grant. Childcare leads to a 44 percent increase in household income, which is at least as large as the impact of cash. Access to childcare increases the labor supply and earnings of single mothers. Among couples, childcare increases the fathers’ earnings through additional wage employment: Time freed-up by childcare is allocated to the parent with the higher labor market returns, typically the man. Our findings show that childcare can be an effective policy to reduce poverty, but that its impact on female labor force participation depends on the household composition and the gender inequality in the labor market.How Do Childcare Interventions Affect Children’s Outcomes?
Abstract
Across all early childhood programs, one class of interventions that has clear, positive impacts on mothers’ economic activity is programs that provide care for children (including daycare, preschool, and kindergarten programs). But care programs also have major potential implications for children’s well-being. In this short paper, we build on an existing systematic review of early childhood interventions in low- and middle-income countries (Evans, Jakiela, and Knauer 2021) to examine impacts of childcare interventions on children’s welfare and development. On net, we find evidence that care interventions—including those for the youngest children—tend to have beneficial effects across outcomes. We find evidence that the quality of care matters, although quality is often poorly or inconsistently measured. For all studies that report heterogeneous treatment effects, we examine those effects and find that in the majority of (but far from all) cases, children who are more vulnerable are more likely to experience positive impacts; we also find that girls are more likely to experience positive effects than boys.Discussant(s)
Orazio Attanasio
,
Yale University
Emma Riley
,
University of Washington
Sara Lowes
,
University of California-San Diego
Lisa A. Gennetian
,
Duke University
JEL Classifications
- I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
- J1 - Demographic Economics