Laboral y de Corresponsabilidad Social – Labor and social co-responsibility Survey) 2012 and find that 79 and 71 percent of women with high and low qualifications, respectively, reported that their children (zero to five years old) are not in daycare because someone else takes care of them. The second most frequent response, however, is that the father prefers the mother to take care of the child (10 percent of women with low qualifications and 8 percent of highly qualified women).<sup>6</sup> Indeed, data from the World Values Survey indicates that a significant share of the population believes that “when a woman works for pay, children suffer”: 32.6 percent agreed and 10.4 percent strongly agreed (2010-2014 wave). Importantly though, those beliefs are changing: The share of respondents agreeing and strongly agreeing was significantly higher in the 1990 WVS wave (50 percent and 25.9 percent respectively).

<mark>This paper presents the results of a qualitative study aimed at deepening the understanding of factors that determine the demand for childcare in Mexico City. The study aims to shed light on what is driving the decisions of Mexican mothers (and fathers) to send their children to childcare or not, with the ultimate objective of adequately informing policies aimed at addressing the existing gaps and imbalances. The paper is divided as follows: After this introduction, the methodological approach is presented. This is followed by the main results of this study, disentangling the decision process for accessing childcare services. This section ends with a discussion about differences in women's decisions to access childcare centers when comparing different social groups. The last section presents the main conclusions related to the complex decisions that underlie the demand for childcare services in Mexico City.</mark>

# Methodology

<mark>The objective of this study is to deepen the understanding of factors that influence the demand for childcare services in Mexico using qualitative research. The study aims to better understand how women and men decide to use childcare centers for their children under the age of six or why and how they decide not to do so. It explores the factors that influence this decision – either positively or negatively. Qualitative research enables to obtain detailed information on motivations and personal barriers, and provides insights into subjective and sensitive topics, including on drivers of personal decisions and behaviors. Informants' individual experiences and perceptions are inductively explored based on a small sample. Informants can express their thoughts and reactions in their own words instead of choosing predefined alternatives. These characteristics made it especially suitable to explore what prevents and drives demand for childcare services, a type of information that cannot</mark> be easily obtained through surveys and quantitative studies.

<mark>Fathers and mothers of children six years or younger were included in the sample, with an effort to reflect heterogeneity through interviewees with different characteristics, as well as childcare center staff. The recruitment of participants was facilitated through personal contacts and entry-points such</mark>

> `6` <mark>Only three of the offered reasons are supply-related: costs, conditions and distance to childcare centers and the fact that some children are not admitted due to illness or disability. Seven percent of low-skilled and 4 percent of highly skilled women mention lack of affordable childcare, and only 3 percent of women at each of these skill levels mention the other two barriers related to the offer to access childcare services. Therefore, for some households, lack of daycare attendance may be a demand-related phenomenon.</mark>

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