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CHAPTER 2
Toward Available, Affordable, and Quality Childcare Services The availability of childcare services matters for women’s economic participation. Women bear a disproportionate burden of unpaid care at home (UN Women 2015), and this unequal distribution of responsibilities compromises their ability to access and retain jobs.1 Women are more often the secondary earner, work fewer hours, and are paid less than men. These gaps widen further when childcare needs arise (Fabrizio et al. 2020). The worldwide COVID-19 crisis has heightened the importance of aligning childcare policies more closely with the needs of working parents and, in particular, working mothers. In light of these circumstances and building on information presented last year, Women, Business and the Law 2022 collected pilot data for 95 economies that measure legal frameworks for the provision of childcare services, focusing on availability, affordability, and quality. This pilot exercise was intended to fill knowledge gaps around the overall design and effectiveness of childcare policies and to inform their successful implementation to increase women’s economic opportunity. Over time, expanding access to childcare can have positive impacts not only for female labor force participation and child development, but also for economic growth, creating a more abundant and diverse workforce and offering substantial business and employment opportunities.
The importance of analyzing childcare laws International law has long recognized that working parents need access to outside childcare and called for making childcare facilities more readily available (figure 2.1). Increasingly, empirical research has documented the positive impact that policies
