🧩 The Challenge
If a lack of childcare keeps women out of the workforce, the solution is to bring the childcare to work. India’s Mobile Creches program allows women to get, and keep, construction jobs because babies and children can come to work with their mothers. In Egypt, the country’s national railways is opening an improved childcare center because, while women make up 18.5% of the labor force, they comprise only 3% of over 40,000 Egyptian National Railways employees.1 Notably, almost one-half of Egypt’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates are women, but barriers such as gender norms, limited childcare, and restrictive workplace policies often keep them from working in engineering and technical jobs.
🛠️ The Intervention
In India, Mobile Creches, as its name suggests, sets up mobile childcare services at construction sites.2 Mobile childcare is especially useful in rural areas, where childcare options are limited. Providing childcare on rural road construction projects can significantly increase female labor force participation and contribute to more inclusive and sustainable development. In Egypt, the new childcare facility will be designed to support both male and female employees. It will use an employee survey to inform its offerings.
Mobile Creches provides more than just childcare, though that alone is crucial. It offers health care, nutrition, and early learning services for children ages zero to twelve. Operating 40 centers and serving over 5,000 children, the organization aims to put childcare centers at all worksites, as a matter of policy. In Egypt, offering on-site childcare hopes to increase female labor force participation and retention at the railway.
đź’ˇ Lessons Learned
The Mobile Creches’ early childhood care model is a smart and innovative way to help working parents and a useful tool for addressing gender disparities in the workforce. Egyptian National Railways’ childcare facility might be less novel, only because it is stationary, but also supports employment and retention, especially for women workers. These projects highlight that both India and Egypt recognize the crucial role of childcare in supporting families and the benefits of promoting women’s participation in, and retention within, the workforce. Mobile childcare services in rural road projects help remove barriers to women’s employment, benefiting not only women but also their families and broader communities. The childcare facility at Egyptian National Railways serves as a model for integrating social support into infrastructure projects, with the potential to set a significant example for other large employers. Both projects tackle a fundamental barrier to women’s participation in traditionally male-dominated industries.
Note: Salma Abdel Fattah, Senior Transport Specialist at the World Bank, provided inputs into this case study.
1 Cairo Alexandria Trade Logistics Development Project (P177932).
2 Mobile Crèches. https://www.mobilecreches.org/; Rising Together: Annual report for Mobile Creches 2023-24.
https://www.mobilecreches.org/_files/ugd/ee163e_2527e717a143419f9c06a6fe14322c55.pdf