<mark>hours worked find increases in women’s non-domestic work, with estimates ranging from 0.5-6 hours per week (</mark> Berlinski and Galiani 2007; Calderon 2014; Du and Dong 2013; Padilla-Romo and Cabrera-Hernández 2018). No impact of childcare for children 3-6 years was found on hours worked in Indonesia, however (Halim, Johnson, and Perova 2021). <mark>Moreover, a decrease in hours was found among full-time Mexican working mothers of children ages 3-5 years, suggesting the public provision of childcare was causing women to change from informal care, possibly provided by relatives, to formal childcare. The authors interpret the results to indicate that the stricter schedules associated with formal care required mothers to reduce their hours to accommodate these new arrangements (</mark> De la Cruz Toledo 2015). Interestingly, Mexican men also reduced the time spent doing childrearing and housework when their children were in care (Calderon 2014).

Only three studies examined impacts on income. In Mexico, income increased slightly among mothers of children ages 1-3 years who were not earning prior to their children participating in institutional care(Calderon 2014). Examining the entire household in this context, Calderon concludes that women’s employment allowed for some husbands to switch into better jobs while other husbands earned less. No change in income was found in Indonesia (Halim, Johnson, and Perova, 2021). Finally, and most notably, the expansion of the Mexican elementary school day was found to result in a 22% increase in earnings overall with a 36% increase in high poverty areas (Padilla-Romo and Cabrera-Hernández 2018).

Two studies include additional outcomes: type of work and labor force attachment. In Indonesia, mothers primarily take up unpaid family work, which may be due to the fact that preschools operate daily for less than half a day (Halim, Johnson, and Perova 2021). As mentioned earlier, the study also finds no impact on maternal income, nor on hours worked. In Chile, greater access to longer school days results in more permanent labor force attachment; with an expansion of 45 percent of schools participating in the longer school day(the amount that would bring all schools up to full day) , both the probability of women participating for at least six months during the year and the fraction of the year they work or seek employment increase by 19 percentage points—the equivalent of two months of work (Berthelon, Kruger, and Oyarzun 2015). These impacts are completely driven by mothers of children in 1<sup>st</sup> and 2<sup>nd</sup> grades. These findings are particularly notable because the longer school days only extend from 1:30 pm to 3.30 pm. Hence, a childcare gap from 3.30 pm to 6 pm remained and mothers participating in full-time employment will need to acquire additional childcare to cover the remaining gap.

# **Quasi-Experiments Using Waitlists**

<mark>Two papers use the waitlist feature of childcare programs in order to assess the impact of receiving childcare, comparing the labor market outcomes of women with children in care to women on the waitlist. The waitlist natural experiments create a discontinuity in receiving childcare between those who do receive it and those who are on the waitlist. However, for the waitlist natural experiment to have valid causal conclusions, it relies on the strong assumption that mothers on the waitlist are comparable—on</mark> _<mark>all</mark>_ <mark>dimensions—to those receiving childcare, except for the childcare access. To certain extent, this can be tested, by checking for balance (i.e., similarities) of observable characteristics. However, it is possible, depending on the waitlist rules, that there could still remain some unobserved selection bias if women who signed up earlier (and thus are more likely to receive childcare and are less likely to be on the waitlist) are also more likely to seek or acquire employment.</mark> 11