Paper short abstract:

The paper looks at the impact of the provision of pre schooling services by Anganwadi Centres (AWC) under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme on mother's employment status. In the absence of affordable child care creches, do AWC enable women to participate in the labour market?

Paper long abstract:

The literature identifies care burden as one of the key factors inhibiting participation of women in the labour market. Adult women spend 130 minutes/day on childcare activities which includes feeding, bathing, childcare instruction, minding etc. (Indian Time Use Survey, 2019). This is particularly true for young children below 6 years of age. In the absence of affordable and well functioning day care creches, women are reliant on extended family members to substitute these services. The Anganwadi Centres (AWC) under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme provide 3 hours of pre school service to children aged 3-6 years. Over the years, AWC have been expanded across the country and the utilisation rate of it's services has increased. In this context, the paper looks at the impact this service has on women's work participation. Does this enable them to participate in the labour market? Using logit and propensity score matching , the paper finds a significant positive impact of pre school services on women's work participation rate. At the policy level, this implies that if childcare services can be provided for extended hours , it might further augment women's participation in labour market. Recently, in 2022 Government of India has launched the Palna scheme which aims to provide day care services for children from 6 months to 6 years for seven hours a day. The paper also looks at the administrative data on the uptake of this scheme by women across different socio-economic groups and occupational categories up till now.