The study is a three-arm, individual-level RCT testing two distinct interventions against a control group over a period of eight months. The RCT aims to determine the primary (labour market and well-being effects including women’s labour force participation and productivity, women’s wellbeing, and child development) and secondary (willingness to pay for childcare services, and women’s agency/locus of control) effects of gaining access to childcare services.
The study involves the randomization of eligible women into one of three groups – control and the two treatment groups (Arm 1 and Arm 2). Women in treatment arm 1 were allowed to en-roll one child aged eight to 48 months, into a market-based childcare facility located within the market where they work for a period of up to eight months. Women in treatment arm 2 were provided with a bursary to enrol one child within the same age range into a childcare facility of their choice up to the end of the 2023school calendar (community-based childcare). The bursary provided to women under treatment arm 2 was non-transferable and is capped at UGX 450,000 (USD $120) per term in line with the average cost of childcare in and around Kampala. Control arm participants did not receive any financial benefits beyond the token of appreciation given to all respondents during the baseline survey.
Following the logic model for the study, the uptake outcome measures include the reduced women’s time in caring for the children and increased stay of the children in the childcare centres. The primary and secondary outcomes measures for the study and their respective hypothesized changes are as follows,
The primary outcomes
Increased women’s labour force participation
Improved women’s business performance in terms of sales and profits
Improved women’s wellbeing
Better child development
The secondary outcomes
Willingness to pay for childcare services.
Improved Women’s agency or locus of control
Data collection for the end line was undertaken in two rounds with the first round of December 2023 covering five markets that started earlier. The second round of data collection took place in March 2024 in Kame Valley market in Mukono. The total sample for the baseline and raffle 972. A total of 883 women were surveyed at the end line, representing 90.84.% of the 927 women in the sample: Market (254), Community (257) and Control (372).
We find that access to childcare increases take-up and usage of childcare services by businesswomen working in markets with slightly higher uptake for community-based childcare. Interestingly, while access to childcare reduced, time spent by the women caring for the target child, women in the community group spent more time as a primary caregiver. This may be due to additional time spent preparing the child for school in the community compared to market-based childcare. Surprisingly, the findings show that access to childcare reduced the time women spent on work-related activities. Given that childcare is usually done alongside other activities, access to childcare enabled women to concentrate on work thereby making them more efficient. These findings agree with Ajayi et. al (2022) and Bjorvatn et al. (2022) The effect of childcare on most business outcomes was not statistically significant except for profits in the market group which were still small and only marginally significant. Furthermore, the findings show that access to childcare had a positive effect on the overall well- being of the women and life satisfaction. The positive effects on child development too are in line with the two studies cited here whose findings too showed improvements in child development from access to access to childcare. Finally, while the effects of access to childcare on willingness to pay were positive, they were marginal (USD 3).
