April 2023 THE EFFECTS OF CHILDCARE GENDER ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN: INNOVATION LAB EVIDENCE FROM A RANDOMIZED The Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) EVALUATION IN BURKINA FASO conducts impact evaluations of development interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa, seeking Authors: Kehinde F. Ajayi, Aziz Dao, and Estelle Koussoubé1 to generate evidence on how to close gender gaps in KEY MESSAGES earnings, productivity, assets, • In a randomized evaluation conducted in Burkina Faso, we examine and agency. The GIL team is whether the provision of affordable childcare services improves both currently working on over 80 early childhood development and women’s economic empowerment. impact evaluations in more than Policymakers and researchers have often considered the objectives of 30 countries with the aim of supporting women’s employment and enhancing child development in building an evidence base with isolation. This study bridges the gap by analyzing the impact of community- lessons for the region. based childcare centers on both women and children. The impact objective of GIL is • We find robust improvement in child development indicators and increasing take-up of effective suggestive evidence that women’s employment, financial outcomes, policies by governments, and psychosocial well-being improved with access to community- development organizations, based childcare centers. Children in sites with the new childcare centers and the private sector had improved early childhood development scores. Women in work sites with to address the underlying new childcare centers reported higher monthly revenue from salaried jobs. causes of gender inequality We find evidence to suggest that this effect may be driven by an increase in in Africa, particularly in terms time allocated to paid work through two channels – by training and employing of women’s economic and women to provide childcare services in the new centers and by relaxing labor social empowerment. The Lab constraints for women who use the centers to care for their children while they aims to do this by producing and delivering a new body pursue economic opportunities elsewhere. of evidence and developing a • Providing affordable, quality childcare services is a cost-effective compelling narrative, geared intervention that yields high social gains. The childcare centers were towards policymakers, on what self-sufficient, essentially paying for themselves. There are also additional works and what does not work unaccounted social benefits from children’s improved development, which in promoting gender equality. could reduce poverty and improve key socio-economic life outcomes. 1 The authors thank Nelsy Reyhanne Marikel Affoum and Cansu Birce Gokalp for preparing the policy brief. https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/africa-gender-innovation-lab THE PROGRAM WHAT WE DID In 2019, the government of Burkina Faso implemented The World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab a youth employment program, which recruited young collaborated with the project implementation team and people (especially women) aged 18-45 to participate in launched a study to assess the effect of integrating labor-intensive public works for six months of guaranteed a childcare intervention within the context of Burkina employment. The public work included the construction Faso’s Youth Employment and Skills Project (PEJDC). of bridges and rural roads, the maintenance of urban We examined the impacts of this subsidized childcare roads and administrative spaces, and reforestation. provision on women’s employment, decision-making Candidates were selected from 49 different communes, autonomy, gender attitudes, and intra-household with a minimum requirement of 30% of women working dynamics, in addition to its effect on child development. at each site. Out of 36 urban worksites that could host a childcare center, PEJDC participants were randomly assigned to either a treatment group (18 sites) where community- based childcare centers were implemented or a control group (18 sites) with no childcare centers. Each center could accommodate up to 50 children and was staffed by seven to ten public works participants who received three days of training to operate the childcare centers, instead of doing the labor-intensive public works along with the other program participants. To estimate the program’s impacts, we interviewed a sample of around 2000 female public works participants with children aged six or under. Fourteen months after the childcare centers opened, we tracked down the same women to find out what happened. FIGURE 1: USE OF CHILDCARE CENTERS OVER THE PAST 12 MONTHS Treatment site Control site 37.3% 24.8% 12.0% 0.3% Used new public works childcare center Used any childcare center WHAT WE FOUND and earning more, they had better financial outcomes, Providing affordable, quality childcare expands with increased savings and an improved ability to get access and utilization of childcare services. A cash in an emergency. We also find some evidence quarter of participants who were employed in worksites of improvements in mental health, a dimension often with the new childcare centers used them at least once overlooked in studies investigating the effects of early- over the course of the year. By contrast, only 12 percent childhood development interventions. These positive of households in the control group had also used any impacts on women outcomes, although less robust after available childcare centers in the past year. Overall, the sensitivity analysis, are promising. share of families using any childcare centers was over Women’s agency did not significantly change. three times higher in the sites with the new childcare Although women were working more and earning more, centers, at 37 percent. these positive outcomes did not reflect in the level of Early childhood development measures were control they had over household decisions nor did they ameliorated, although childcare centers remained transform women’s gender attitudes. Our study does not closed for a third of the time of the study. Children find any significant changes in women’s involvement in in sites with the new childcare centers had improved decision-making in the household, their attitudes toward early childhood development scores, with a 0.2 standard gender, their freedom of movement, or their partners’ deviation gain on average. These gains primarily showed involvement in childcare and other household activities. up in gross and fine motor skills, with no increases nor These intrahousehold dynamics may require more time deterioration in language development. Additionally, to evolve, or perhaps an income increase does not these positive impacts on child development persisted automatically shift the balance in decision-making power. even through childcare center closures, and they might have been even higher without the COVID-19 disruptions. The childcare centers were cost-effective. The monthly cost of operating each center was USD 16.6 Women’s employment and financial outcomes per child if they were running at full capacity. The centers improved, so did their psychological well-being. typically had around 33 children enrolled instead of the Women in sites with childcare centers spent more time maximum 50, which raised operating costs to USD 25.2 engaged in paid work, subsequently increasing their per child on average. Women who used the childcare monthly revenue. Some of these women were directly centers earned an extra USD 23 to 25 per month employed to work in the childcare centers, others were (based on estimates of the effects of the treatment on able to pursue alternative revenue bearing activities since the treated). Factoring in any additional benefits from the provision of childcare services freed up time otherwise children’s improved development would imply that the dedicated to caregiving. In addition to women working social gains were even higher. FIGURE 2: EFFECTS OF THE CHILDCARE CENTERS Full Sample Has a child aged 0 to 2 95% CI 0.3 Standard Deviation Effects (ITT estimates) 0.2 0.1 0 -0.1 Employment Decision-making Mental health Finance Child development Indexes CONCLUSIONS OR POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS/IMPLICATIONS Our findings showcase promising new evidence that the provision of childcare could positively impact both women and children. However, there is still more room for change to influence women’s decision-making agency and partners’ involvement in domestic tasks. Our findings also demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of the intervention. The childcare centers were not only self- sufficient because they essentially paid for themselves, but also contributed to higher revenue for women who used the childcare centers and the women who were employed as caregivers at the sites. More importantly, although this study focused on Burkina Faso, our findings imply that other childcare models and community-based interventions could yield positive impacts on multiple outcomes. Hopefully, this is the start of more policymakers, practitioners, and researchers thinking holistically about how to integrate women’s empowerment with early child development to improve both women’s and children’s well-being. For more information on the study, see the Policy Research Working Paper: HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Cansu Birce Gokalp cgokalp@worldbank.org Africa Gender Innovation Lab afrgenderlab@worldbank.org Photo credit: Olivier Girard, Amina Semlali/World Bank, Agence Manivelles/World Bank 1818 H St NW Washington, DC 20433 USA This work has been supported through generous contributions from Global Affairs Canada, in partnership with the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE), which is a multi-donor trust fund administered by the World Bank to www.worldbank.org/africa/gil advance gender equality and women’s empowerment through experimentation and knowledge creation to help governments and the private sector focus policy and programs on scalable solutions with sustainable outcomes. The UFGE is supported with generous contributions from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund.