Public Childcare and Female Empowerment: Evidence from Mexico

Sammanfattning: Despite ample evidence on the importance of labor market opportunities for women’s bargaining power, the link between public childcare availability and female empowerment has so far been widely overlooked. Using detailed survey data on household dynamics, this paper investigates the impact of the Mexican childcare program Estancias Infantiles para Apoyar a Madres Trabajadoras on women’s decision-making power and the prevalence of intimate partner violence. I take advantage of the program’s rapid expansion and the resulting geographical variation in exposure to isolate the causal impact of childcare availability on women’s empowerment through a triple difference-in-differences model based on municipality-level treatment intensity. Estimates show that childcare availability leads to a decline in the incidence rates of spousal abuse, but also aggravates women’s decision-making power, which points towards yet unobserved household responses to enhanced economic opportunities for women. Disaggregation by income uncovers behavioral patterns best predicted by the male backlash theory among low-income households.