Abstract
Background: Older children in developing countries are often
charged with extensive caregiving and domestic responsibilities, which
may impact the amount of time they participate in school. Provision of
affordable, high-quality daycare may eliminate some of the burden placed
on older siblings, but most research to-date focuses on outcomes among
the children actually enrolled in care. Our goal was to estimate the
effect of formal childcare provision on older siblings’ school
participation in India’s largest state.
Methods: Data were drawn from a cluster-randomized trial
conducted in rural Rajasthan, India. We used an intention-to-treat
approach to assess the impact of treatment assignment on several
indicators of school enrollment and reasons for non-enrollment. We also
stratified all models by sex to explore potential effect heterogeneity.
Results: We found a weak relationship between treatment
assignment and children’s school participation (measured in days per
week): (0.09, 95% CI: 0.04, 0.14). Other estimates were largely null,
likely due to the relatively short follow-up period at the time of
analysis.
Conclusion: Our preliminary findings suggest that provision of
formal, affordable childcare may be associated with changes in
educational outcomes in older siblings. Future work will use the full
range of data to assess long-term effects of this intervention.