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Despite evidence from other regions, researchers and policy-makers remain skeptical that women's disproportionate childcare responsibilities act as a significant barrier to women's economic empowerment in Africa. This randomized control trial study in an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, demonstrates that limited access to affordable early childcare inhibits poor urban women's participation in paid work. Women who were offered vouchers for subsidized early childcare were, on average, 8.5 percentage points more likely to be employed than those who were not given vouchers. Most of these employment gains were realized by married mothers. Single mothers, in contrast, benefited by significantly reducing the time spent working without any loss to their earnings by shifting to jobs with more regular hours. The effects on other measures of women's economic empowerment were mixed. With the exception of children's health care, access to subsidized day care did not increase women's participation in other important household decisions. In addition, contrary to concerns that reducing the costs of childcare may elevate women's desire for more children, we find no effect on women's fertility intentions. These findings demonstrate that the impact of subsidized childcare differs by marital status and across outcomes. Nonetheless, in poor urban Africa, as elsewhere, failure to address women's childcare needs undermines efforts to promote women's economic empowerment.

\"In most families today, childcare remains divided unequally between fathers and mothers. Scholars argue that persistence of the gendered division of childcare is due to multiple causes, including values about gender and family, disparities in paid work, class, and social context. It is likely that all of these factors interact, but to date researchers have not explored such interactions. To address this gap, we analyze nationally representative time-use data from Australia, Denmark, France, and Italy. These countries have different employment patterns, social and family policies, and cultural attitudes toward parenting and gender equality. Using data from matched married couples, we conduct a cross-national study of mothers' and fathers' relative time in childcare, divided along dimensions of task (i.e., routine versus non-routine activities) and co-presence (i.e., caring for children together as a couple versus caring solo). Results show that mothers' and fathers' work arrangements and education relate modestly to shares of childcare, and this relationship differs across countries. We find cross-national variation in whether more equal shares result from the behavior of mothers, fathers, or both spouses. Results illustrate the relevance of social context in accentuating or minimizing the impact of individual- and household-level characteristics.\" (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku). Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch; Querschnitt. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1999 bis 2008.

The Chinese government has implemented several policies to promote the development of childcare services. However, Chinese childcare services are facing a dilemma rather than flourishing. Against this background, this study intends to reveal the development process of the Chinese childcare service from prosperity to stagnation, the dilemmas that arise during this process, and the reasons why they face these dilemmas. Based on the grounded theory methodology, we interviewed 13 childcare institutions in Wuhan, coded the data, and formed a theoretical framework. We found that childcare services have undergone four development stages: rise, face dilemmas, attempt to Re-Rise, and Prefer to Stable. During the development process, childcare services are faced with four dilemmas: the external dilemma of lacking support, the internal dilemma in operation, the teacher dilemma of low quality and high turnover, and the parent dilemma of demands that cannot be met. We analyzed the reasons behind these issues and proposed suggestions to help Chinese childcare services boom again.

Background The consequences of external childcare for children are controversially discussed. Many claim that early extrafamilial care is harmful to the child. This article aimed to study the relationship between external childcare at preschool age and psychological burden in adulthood. Given that extrafamilial care followed different norms and regulations depending on the location in East or West Germany during their division, the question was also pursued whether the association between early childcare and psychological burden differed between those regions. Methods The analyses are based on a representative sample collected in 2020. A total of 1,796 Germans (1,448 West, 348 East) were divided into three childcare groups: those who first entered external care before the age of three, those who started with or after the age of three, and those who stayed in familial care until school entry. Psychological burden was indicated by the Brief Symptom Inventory-18. Differences in psychological burden according to childcare group and region were tested by ANOVAs, ANCOVAs, and OLS-regressions. Results Compared to West Germans in familial care before school entry, West Germans who received full-time external childcare before the age of three tended to report stronger symptoms of depression (std. β = 0.20, p  = .050), anxiety (std. β = 0.20, p  = .056), and the global score of psychological burden (std. β = 0.19, p  = .066). In contrast, extrafamilial childcare was not related to the psychological burden of East Germans. Moreover, East Germans and West Germans differed significantly in terms of their relationship between psychological burden and extrafamilial full-time care before the age of three. Conclusions Though in the West, full-time care before the age of three was related to greater psychological burden this was not found in the East, indicating external childcare itself might not be harmful. Future research should observe whether selection effects, differing quality in childcare institutions, or differing norms were responsible for this disparity between regions.

Background The food and beverages served in family childcare homes (FCCHs) may play an important role in the development of childhood overweight and obesity. This analysis examines whether children’s diet quality mediates the relationship between foods and beverages served in FCCHs and preschool-aged children’s weight status. Methods Trained and certified staff conducted observations for two days in each FCCH, using the Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation (EPAO) measure to determine the foods and beverages served to children ( N  = 370) in FCCHs ( N  = 120). They also used the Dietary Observation in Child Care (DOCC) protocol to assess children’s food and beverage intake during childcare, from which we calculated the Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI), a measure of diet quality. Height and weight were measured for each child with parent consent from which the child’s body mass index (BMI) z-scores were calculated. A multilevel mediation analysis was conducted to indicate whether children’s diet quality mediates the relations between food and beverage served in FCCHs and preschool-aged children’s weight status. Results Children’s total HEI scores significantly mediated the relationship between the EPAO subscale Food Provided and children’s BMI z-scores (B=-0.01, p  < .05, 95% CI = [-0.03, − 0.002]). Further, the EPAO subscale Food Provided was positively associated with the total HEI score (B = 0.75, p  < .01, 95% CI = [0.32, 1.18]). Total HEI scores were negatively associated with BMI z-score (B=-0.01, p  < .05, 95% CI = [-0.02, − 0.001]). Conclusion Children’s diet quality did significantly mediate the relationship between the food served in FCCHs and children’s weight status. More longitudinal studies with longer follow-up periods need to be conducted to confirm these relationships. Further, future studies need to examine the relationships between a broader spectrum of FCCH environmental characteristics and home environment with children’s weight status, as well as other mediators including physical activity.

In the course of the twentieth century, social scientists and policy analysts have produced a large volume of literature on whether policies boost fertility. This paper describes the results of a systematic review of the literature on the effects of policy on fertility since 1970 in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia. Empirical studies were selected through extensive systematic searches, including studies using an experimental or quasi‐experimental design. Thirty‐five studies were included, covering reforms of parental leave, childcare, health services, and universal child transfers. In line with previous reviews, we find that childcare expansions increase completed fertility, while increased cash transfers have temporary effects. New evidence on parental leave expansions, particularly from Central Europe, suggests larger effects than previously established. High‐earning couples benefit more from parental leave expansions, while expanding childcare programs can reduce social inequalities on other domains. Subsidizing assisted reproductive treatments shows some promise of increasing birth rates for women over the age of 35. Countries that to date have limited support for families can build on solid evidence if they choose to expand these programs.

In this paper, we exploit pension reform-induced changes in retirement eligibility requirements to assess the role of grandparental childcare availability in the labor force participation of women with children under 15. Our analysis shows that, among the women studied, those whose own mothers are retirement eligible have a 11% higher probability of being in the labor force than those whose mothers are ineligible. The pension eligibility of maternal grandfathers and paternal grandparents, however, has no significant effect on the women’s labor force participation. We also demonstrate that the eligibility of maternal grandmothers mainly captures the effect of their availability for childcare. Hence, pension reforms, by potentially robbing households of an important source of flexible, low-cost childcare, could have unintended negative consequences for the employment rates of women with young children.

Married mothers who relocate are less likely to be employed after an interstate move than married childless women and nonmobile mothers. Here, we ask whether moving to a state with more expensive childcare is associated with lower odds of maternal employment among mothers who had been employed prior to relocation. We use hierarchical binomial logistic regression models, combining data from the 2015 American Community Survey five-year sample and state-level childcare costs to assess married mothers’ employment following an interstate move, controlling for states’ economic conditions. We show that employment odds for married mothers were about 42% lower than those for childless married women in the year following a move. Married mothers who moved to more expensive childcare states had odds of employment that were 18% lower than those of married mothers who moved to less expensive childcare states, showing that childcare accessibility shapes mothers’ employment decisions even among those with stronger labor force attachment. Moving back to respondents’ or their spouses’ state of birth and moving to states with more favorable economic conditions improved odds of employment as well. Overall, we show that moving to states with fewer childcare barriers is associated with higher levels of maternal employment, partly mitigating the negative labor market effects of interstate migration.

Abstract The nature and scale of the shocks to the demand for, and the supply of, home childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic provide a unique opportunity to increase our understanding of the division of home labour and the determinants of specialization within the household. We collected real-time data on daily lives to document the impact of measures to control COVID-19 on UK families with children under the age of 12. We document that these families have been doing the equivalent of a working week in childcare, with mothers bearing most of the burden. The additional hours of childcare done by women are less sensitive to their employment than they are for men, leaving many women juggling work and (a lot more) childcare, with likely adverse effects on their mental health and future careers. However, some households, those in which men have not been working, have taken greater steps towards an equal allocation, offering the prospect of sharing the burden of childcare more equally in the future.

Young children are thought to be vulnerable to separation from their primary caregiver. This raises concern about whether early childcare enrollment may harmchild development. We use childcare assignment lotteries to estimate the effect of enrollment at age 1–2 on cognitive development in Norway. Estimates show significant gains in language and mathematics at age 6–7 and a substantial drop in scores below publicly set thresholds for low performance. Across subsamples, we find a pattern of stronger effects on underperforming groups. We find little support for childcare quality or family income as drivers of our results.