Childcare should be treated as a core economic investment rather than a narrow social welfare expense, according to a new study presented at the 14th Africa Evidence Summit.
The study, led by Dessalegn Anshiso of the Policy Studies Institute, argues that early childhood care and development has the power to boost productivity, support women’s employment and improve household welfare, especially in countries like Ethiopia where women still carry most unpaid care work.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, women spend more than three times as many hours on unpaid caregiving as men, the study notes. In Ethiopia, women spend an average of 26 hours a week on unpaid care work, compared with about six hours for men.
Researchers say this imbalance limits women’s participation in paid work and keeps many confined to low-income informal jobs. It also slows progress in reducing poverty across generations.
The study, titled Childcare as Economic Infrastructure: Women Economic Empowerment, Household Welfare, and Children Outcomes in Addis Ababa, was conducted under the Scaling Care Innovations in Africa initiative, with support from Canada’s International Development Research Centre and in partnership with the Addis Ababa City Administration and ActionAid.
The findings come as Addis Ababa tries to expand public daycare services. Municipal authorities have set a target of 1,000 daycare centers by 2026, but existing facilities remain overstretched, leaving many low-income families on waiting lists.
According to the researchers, that shortage has turned what should be a broad productivity-enhancing service into a narrowly targeted safety net for only the most vulnerable households.
The study also points to social and cultural barriers that continue to limit the benefits of childcare services. Even when daycare is available, traditional gender expectations and household power dynamics can create conflict at home and discourage women from taking up paid work.
Dessalegn said childcare should be viewed in the same way as roads, electricity and transport infrastructure because it frees labor, expands economic participation and supports long-term development.
The research team carried out what it described as the first longitudinal difference-in-differences evaluation of public daycare in Ethiopia. It tracked 1,975 low-income households in two rounds of data collection between 2024/25 and 2025/26.
The study compared 769 beneficiary households using 29 municipal daycare centers with 1,206 similar households that remained on waiting lists.
The results show that access to public daycare reduced women’s daily unpaid care burden by an average of 2.5 hours and increased their paid work time by 6.8 hours a day.
The impact also extended to older children. Unpaid housework among older girls fell by 8.5 hours a week, while boys’ unpaid work dropped by three hours. Girls’ primary school enrollment increased from 94.09 percent to 95.91 percent.
The researchers also found that maternal stress declined significantly, as measured by standard wellbeing indicators. However, the study found no statistically significant short-term reduction in clinical depression, suggesting that childcare alone may not be enough and may need to be paired with psychosocial support.
As women’s earnings increased, the study found a modest rise in joint household decision-making, including greater shared decisions on major household purchases.
Dessalegn said the findings support a shift in policy thinking, with childcare financing moved out of welfare budgets and into national development and capital expenditure frameworks.
He said accessible, quality childcare should be treated as productive public infrastructure that supports women, children and the wider economy.
