Shelley Clark

We can think of iconic images like The Atlantic monthly cover of the mom carrying the kid in the briefcase to work and how absurd that's supposed to be to us, but then when we think of women in lower-income countries, you think of the mom selling goods at the market with a kid strapped to her back, and you think,' Well, that's not a problem for her, because she can easily combine child care and work,' there's this perception out there that for the kinds of work that women do in lower-income countries, it's easier to combine child care and work.

Having older siblings help with child care is very common in most low-income settings. Although older brothers may also help with child care, the burden of child care seems to be more detrimental for older sisters, we find that female adolescents living in the household are twice as likely to be attending high school if the mother uses day care than if she does not use day care.

Brazil has actually done a lottery to have some low-income moms get day care and others not, mexico has started to look at options for expanding child care access for low-income families, and in India too, the government has supported some projects trying to expand access to child care, primarily in the rural areas.

We thought that if we focused on mothers with young children, below the age of 3, that few would be paying for formal day care. In fact, we found that about 30 % already used these services, suggesting a high demand.