Strengthening childcare markets through social franchising: evidence from Kenya
High-quality day care has the potential to be a “triple-win” fostering child development, increasing parental income, and increasing day care profits in a mostly female workforce.
Abstract
Through a cluster randomised intervention, the authors find the social franchising model substantially increases day care quality and meal provision. They also find benefits among competitor firms that did not enrol in the programme, suggesting that social franchising maybe a promising approach to generate widespread benefits. The authors highlight that higher quality did not lead to either higher prices or firm revenues, and enrolment also did not change, perhaps because parents have a low willingness to pay or cannot easily observe quality.
This is an output of the Gender, Growth and Labour Markets in Low Income Countries programme.
Citation
Beam E and others. ‘Strengthening childcare markets through social franchising: evidence from Kenya’ G2LM LIC Policy Brief, No. 82, 2025
Links
Strengthening childcare markets through social franchising: evidence from Kenya