Life-Cycle Impacts of Center-Based Childcare for Children and Women in the Kyrgyz Republic

Project Background

In 2022, the World Bank Group launched the Invest in Childcare initiative to drive investments in high-quality and affordable childcare. Expanding access to such childcare is among the most important investments countries can make to build human capital, accelerate gender equality, and place women and children at the center of economic growth. Over 40 percent of children globally—or nearly 350 million—below primary school age need childcare but do not have access to it.

The childcare challenge disproportionately impacts families in low and lower-middle-income countries. Addressing this gap not only supports children’s cognitive and emotional development but also enables more women to join the workforce, fueling long-term economic prosperity and, ideally, greater gender equality.

In Kyrgyzstan, the demand for childcare is not met with adequate supply. The number of preschools, supported by the government, donors, and NGOs, has nearly tripled from 2010-2022. However, only 41% of children in urban and 21% in rural areas receive center-based childcare. To address this problem, the government has enacted new legislation to facilitate the opening of childcare by private providers, and the World Bank’s National Community Initiatives project will be funding childcare.

Project Objectives

Life in Kyrgyzstan (LiK) Study, an individual-level panel from 3,000 households, started in 2010, provides a unique opportunity to inform the broader childcare policy in Kyrgyzstan and beyond as it focuses on assessing the life-cycle impact of access to childcare. First, LiK tracks the expansion of center-based childcare across time and space. Second, the multi-topic surveys allow the analyses of children’s, women’s, households’, and community outcomes. Third, LiK allows for analysis of life-cycle outcomes, including long-term outcomes for women and children. Fourth, LiK allows for rigorous analysis due to its panel structure. LiK administered a childcare module in 2013.

This project will focus on collecting the 7th wave of the LiK survey, including a household childcare module, in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank, which provides co-funding for data collection. Based on data analyses, the project will generate and share evidence on the life cycle impacts of center-based childcare.