The Effect of Early Childhood Development Programmes on Women's Labour Force Participation and Older Children's Schooling in Kenya

Abstract

We analyse the effect of child care costs on households’ behaviour in Kenya. For households with children 3–7 years of age, we model the participation of the mother in paid work, the participation of other household members in paid work, household demand for schooling for school-aged children and household demand for child care. We find that high costs of child care discourage households from using formal child care and reduce the level of mothers’ participation in market work. The cost of child care and a mother’s wage level influence school enrolment of older children. However, these two factors affect boys’ and girls’ schooling in different ways. An increase in the mother’s wage increases school enrolment for boys, but decreases it for girls. Higher prices for child care have no significant effect on boys’ schooling but significantly decrease girls’ schooling.