The Impact of Early Childhood Care and Education on Maternal Time Use in Egypt

• In Event: Early childhood care and education enrollment: Policy drivers and impacts

Abstract

Women’s disproportionate unpaid care work is a key driver of gender gaps in economic outcomes. Gender gaps in unpaid care work – and employment – are largest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (Gottlieb et al., 2024; International Labour Organization, 2018; Rubiano-Matulevich & Viollaz, 2019; Verick, 2018). For instance, the ratio of women’s to men’s unpaid care work is nearly five to one in Egypt (Atallah & Hesham, 2024). 

Redistributing care responsibilities to the market through care services has reduced gender disparities in time use and promoted women’s employment across a variety of contexts (Halim, Perova, and Reynolds 2023; Gelbach 2002). Early childhood care and education (ECCE), in particular, plays a critical role due to the substantial impact of children on labor market gender inequality (Kleven, Landais, and Søgaard 2019). Past research from low- and middle-income countries highlights that in almost all cases, ECCE increases women’s employment rates, and/or the women who are employed work longer hours (Halim, Perova, and Reynolds 2023). When other aspects of their time use are studied, research also often shows women spend less time in unpaid care work when they have ECCE for their children (Angeles et al. 2012; Calderón 2014; Fang and Miao 2024). ECCE can thus play a critical role in women’s time use.

This paper tests the potential of ECCE to decrease women’s unpaid care work and increase their employment in Egypt. Using the 2023 Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS), this study examines how ECCE affects women’s time use and employment. The analysis employs both a regression discontinuity design (RDD), leveraging the primary school enrollment age cutoff, and a difference-in-differences (DID) approach incorporating both the age cutoff and survey timing variation. 

The findings show that in Egypt, ECCE does not reduce mothers’ overall time spent on unpaid care work, nor does it increase mothers’ employment rates or hours spent in employment. These findings contrast with the majority of the literature finding ECCE decreases care work and increases maternal employment (Halim, Perova, and Reynolds 2023; Gelbach 2002; Swart, Van Den Berge, and Van Der Wiel 2019; Bastani, Blomquist, and Micheletto 2020). This disparity may be in part due to relatively short days of primary school in Egypt; past research has demonstrated that short days of ECCE can lead to no impact or even reductions in employment in other low-employment contexts (Medrano 2009; Krafft and Lassassi 2024). 

Primary school also creates additional care responsibilities in preparing children for the school day, taking children to and from school, and helping with their learning and homework after school. Even during times when these direct care responsibilities are alleviated – when children are in school – mothers substitute into indirect care work, undertaking household chores. ECCE may slightly shift the timing and types of care work mothers engage in but is no guarantee of decreases in care work and increases in employment. 

Author

• Caroline Gould Krafft, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Presenting Author