Can a simple policy tweak unlock mothers’ economic potential? This session presents causal evidence that shifting childcare enrollment from opt-in to opt-out significantly boosts uptake, with direct gains in mothers’ employment and earnings—offering clear, actionable insights for policymakers.

Read the paper | Watch recording

Key messages

• Defaults matter—even when childcare already exists.
  Moving lunchtime childcare from opt-in to opt-out substantially increased enrollment, showing that take-up barriers can be behavioral rather than purely supply-driven.
• A small, well-placed service can unlock labor supply.
  Automatic enrollment into lunchtime care—one block in the middle of the day—triggered meaningful increases in mothers’ employment, hours, and earnings among parents of younger children.
• The effects are driven primarily by the default, not the price.
  Uptake rose strongly even for families facing no fee reduction or even higher fees, and enrollment “bunched” at the default number of days—patterns hard to reconcile with a pure price story.
• Largest impacts among families previously relying on home care.
  Low-income households, families with a migration background, and more traditional breadwinner families responded particularly strongly—suggesting defaults can reach groups not captured by standard expansions.
• Mechanisms point to inertia, coordination, and norm shifts.
  Evidence is consistent with families sticking to defaults, peer/coordination effects (class-level pre-reform use shapes take-up), and broader re-optimization of childcare arrangements (spillovers to after-school care and siblings).
• Policy relevance: “low-cost” design tweaks can deliver scale effects—if capacity/quality are in place.
  Administrative changes can make existing systems work better, but transferability depends on baseline provision, capacity constraints, and quality considerations (including potential child outcomes).