Publication: Government Financial Support for Childcare Services: A Study of Regulations in 95 Economies
Loading...
Date
2023-07-25
ISSN
Published
2023-07-25
Editor(s)
Abstract
This brief presents new data collected by the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law project on childcare legislation in 95 economies around the world. It focuses on government measures aimed at making childcare more affordable. The data used in this brief are based on a conceptual framework that considers both demand and supply-side constraints of the childcare market that limit the uptake and provision of childcare services. e data, current as of October 1, 2021, indicate that only 41 of these economies have policies to encourage the use of childcare by reducing its costs for parents, either through direct financial support to parents, support for private providers, or both. This brief offers a comprehensive overview of government support strategies to reduce costs and increase the affordability of childcare services; such an overview can guide further empirical analysis to assess the impact of these provisions.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Sakhonchik, Alena; Elefante, Marina; Niesten, Hannelore Maria L.. 2023. Government Financial Support for Childcare Services: A Study of Regulations in 95 Economies. Global Indicators Briefs ; No.21. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40084 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Filling the Gaps(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-07-11)This paper aims to provide global evidence on whether and what attributes of laws governing the provision of childcare services affect women's labor market outcomes. It merges country-year-level data from the World Bank's Women, Business and the Law database, which documents childcare laws across countries, with data on women's labor force participation from ILOSTAT. Using a difference-in-difference estimation framework, the analysis finds that the enactment of childcare laws increases women's labor force participation by 2 percent, on average. Moreover, the effect increases over time, reaching up to 4 percent five years after an enactment. This effect is driven by women who are married, have completed less than primary education, and are between the ages of 35 and 44. Lastly, regulation of the availability and affordability of childcare has a similar impact on female labor force participation, whereas the effect of quality regulation is smaller.Publication Does Paternity Leave Matter for Female Employment in Developing Economies?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03)For a sample of 53 developing countries, the results show that women's employment among private firms is significantly higher in countries that mandate paternity leave versus those that do not. A conservative estimate suggests an increase of 6.8 percentage points in the proportion of women workers associated with the mandating of paternity leave.Publication Could Childcare Services Improve Women’s Labor Market Outcomes in Indonesia?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03)In this brief, the authors explore whether lack of access to childcare is a constraint to female labor force participation (LFP) in Indonesia, a country where female LFP lags far below the regional average. Using household and labor force survey data, we find that low female LFP is linked to unsatisfied childcare needs - after childbirth, lack of access to informal childcare is associated with a longer absence from the workforce for women and a switch into less lucrative occupations or unpaid family work.Publication Policy Lessons on Access to and Uptake of Childcare Services(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023)Unpaid care work and the lack of access to affordable childcare constitute key barriers to women’s participation in labor markets. The International Labour Organization estimates that, in 2018, 647 million working-age adults were hindered from entering the workforce due to family responsibilities—94 percent of whom were women. In that year, women’s unpaid care work amounted to three-quarters of total unpaid care work, with an estimated value of 9 percent of global GDP. A pilot study by the MNA GIL in Egypt finds that, on average, mothers spent 11 hours per day on childcare and seven hours per day doing household chores. The EAP GIL reviewed causal evidence on the effects of childcare interventions on maternal labor market engagement in low and middle-income countries and found positive impacts for 21 out of the 22 studies considered.Publication The Gender Impact of Pension Reform(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-01)During the past two decades, new multi-pillar systems have developed to make the plans more financially sustainable and beneficial for economic growth. These systems have been sweeping Latin America, the transition economies of Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, as well as many OECD countries. The new systems contain two separate mandatory "pillars" or financing arrangements: a privately-managed defined contribution (DC) funded plan that handles workers' retirement saving and a publicly-managed defined benefit (DB) plan that is reduced in size compared with the old one and has the objective of redistributing and diversifying retirement income. In the defined contribution plan, the contribution is specified and placed in the worker's individual account but benefits are uncertain a priori--they depend strictly on contributions plus investment earnings that accumulate through the workers' lifetime. The fact that these accounts are funded, owned by workers, invested in financial markets, and don't carry a promise of a large tax-financed old age benefit relieves the government of a future financial obligation. However, critics argue that these plans will produce lower pensions for women, who have worked and contributed less than men. In contrast, supporters argue that the new systems remove biases in the old systems that favored men and discouraged work by women. They hypothesize that separating the redistributive function from the earnings-related saving function results in more transparent and targeted redistributions from which women will benefit.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Aging and Poverty in Africa and the Role of Social Pensions(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01)In many low income African countries, three factors are placing an undue burden on the elderly: 1) the burden on the elderly has enormously increased with the increase in mortality of prime age adults due to the HIV-AIDS pandemic and regional conflicts; 2) the traditional safety net of the extended family has become ineffective and unreliable for the elderly; and, 3) in a few countries, the elderly are called upon to shoulder the responsibility of the family as they became the principal breadwinners, and caregivers for young children. While a number of studies have examined the welfare consequences of these developments on children, few studies have systematically analyzed the poverty situation among the elderly (relative to other groups) in low income countries in Africa, and the role of social pensions. This study aims to fill this gap. The findings show much heterogeneity across countries with respect to the proportion of the elderly population, the living arrangements, and the composition of households, and household headship. The analysis shows that the poverty situation, and especially the poverty gap ratio, for the household types the "elderly only", the "elderly with children" and the "elderly-headed households" is much higher than the average in several countries, and the differences are statistically significant. The analysis further shows that the fiscal cost of providing a universal non-contributory social pension to all of the elderly will be quite high - 2 percent to 3 percent of GDP, a level comparable to, or even higher, than the levels of total public spending on health care in some countries. While categorical targeting of a pension for the above groups yields the maximum poverty reduction impacts, and is also fiscally sustainable even in low income countries, its operational feasibility is considered to be weak. The study concludes that the case for a universal approach is weak. The best option appears to be to target the pension only to the poor among the elderly, keeping the benefit level low. The study underscores the need for more country-specific work to explore the feasibility of the recommended option in diverse country settings.Publication Case Study 2 - Andhra Pradesh, India : Participation in Macroeconomic Policy Making and Reform(Washington, DC, 2003-03)For the past six years, the State of Andhra Pradesh in India has been at the vanguard of efforts to modernize the economy and the state while pursuing policies to improve the lives of the poorest. The Chief Minister and head of the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Mr. Chandra Babu Naidu, is known by some as the "Laptop Minister" for his modernizing initiatives. He has reached out to international organizations and investors but has also maintained his base of support at home, in part through expanded programs in education, health, and rural development. "I have initiated so many things," Naidu said. "They are going on and will pay off after some time. But people need something today." The challenges facing the government are daunting. Andhra Pradesh (AP) is one of the largest and poorest states in India. Its population of almost 80 million approaches that of the Philippines, the 13th most populous country in the world. Even as its high-tech industries develop rapidly, AP's overall literacy rate remains a modest 44% and one-third of the population lives in poverty.Publication Kingdom of Morocco : Poverty Update, Volume 1. Main Report(Washington, DC, 2001-03-30)According to the 1998-99 Living Standards Measurement Survey conducted in Moroocco, poverty showed a disturbing increase during the 1990s, regardless of how poverty is measured. This report updates the poverty profile for Morocco following the comprehensive approach suggested by the latest World Development Report (see report no. 20888 for an overview of this report). It presents a detailed analysis of 1) Poverty trends in the 1990s (Chapter 2), 2) which factors are key in explaining the observed increase in poverty (Chapter 3), and 3) the support given to the poor by Government intervention (Chapter 4). An overview of the main initiatives taken by the authorities as well as by nongovernmental organizations and private businesses in the late 1990s is presented in the first chapter; their effects, though not captured by the 1998/99 data, are likely to have a significant impact on poverty reduction in the coming years.Publication Strategic Planning for Poverty Reduction in Vietnam : Progress and Challenges for Meeting the Localized Millennium Development Goals(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-01)This paper discusses the progress that Vietnam has made toward meeting a core set of development goals that the government recently adopted as part of its Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS). These goals are strongly related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but are adapted and expanded to reflect Vietnam's national challenges and the government's ambitious development plans. For each Vietnam Development Goal, the authors describe recent trends in relation to the trajectories implied by the MDGs, outline the intermediate targets identified by the government, and discuss the challenges involved in meeting these. Relative to other countries of similar per capita expenditures, Vietnam has made rapid progress in a number of key areas. Poverty has halved over the 1990s, enrollment rates in primary education have risen to 91 percent (although there is a quality problem), indicators of gender equity have been strengthened, child mortality has been reduced, maternal health has improved, and real progress has been made in combating malaria and other communicable diseases. In contrast, Vietnam scores worse than other comparable countries in the areas of child malnutrition, access to clean water, and combating HIV/AIDS. A number of important crosscutting issues emerge from this analysis that need to be addressed. One such challenge is improving equity, both in terms of ensuring that the benefits of growth are distributed evenly across the population and in terms of access to public services. This will involve addressing the affordability of education and curative health care for poor households. Improvements in public expenditure planning are needed to align resources better to stated desired outcomes and to link nationally-defined targets to subnational planning and budgeting processes. There is also a need to address capacity and data gaps which will be crucial for effective monitoring.Publication Improving Access to Medicines in Developing Countries : Application of New Institutional Economics to the Analysis of Manufacturing and Distribution Issues(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-03)This paper examines alternative frameworks for empirical analysis of supply side activities, namely, the manufacture and distribution of medicine, through the application of New Institutional Economics (NIE) concepts. Attention is focused particularly upon the potential utility of ideas from agency theory, transaction cost analysis and contemporary ideas from strategy theory. The major purpose of this paper is to use these theoretical frameworks to provide insight for policy makers, when faced with specific situations, whether in an international agency, or a private company, or in defining a national strategy. The analysis attempts to show the importance of distinctions between ideas of 'make' or 'buy', between 'national self sufficiency' and 'international purchasing' strategies, the limitations of contractual agreements under market governance and the crucial linkages between strategy formulation, strategy implementation and the necessary capabilities to achieve successful performance in practice. The current international situation on the investment, location and capacity of pharmaceutical manufacturing is reviewed and likely future scenarios suggested. Correspondingly current patterns of trade in medicines and their likely development within the context of the WTO and bilateral trade agreements are discussed. Against this background the promise and the pitfalls for new forms of public-private partnerships, which may offer attractive alternatives to conventional structures are evaluated. The implications of alternative future strategic options for national governments in setting the balance between health and industrial policies are examined and in particular the extent to which a national manufacturing capability should be developed or sustained. Similarly the scope for improving low cost distribution systems for medicines, based upon a mix of public and private sector channels, is assessed. We conclude with suggestions for further development of a transaction-based framework.