Access to suitable and affordable childcare is a prerequisite for labour force participation for many mothers. The authors use data from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study to investigate how lack of access to childcare affects mothers’ work in New Zealand, a nation with high-quality but expensive childcare.

This paper finds many mothers whose young children are not in childcare due to a lack of access report being prevented from working by childcare access issues. However, just over a fifth of mothers whose children are not in care due to access issues do work, and some mothers whose children are in care still report they are unable to work due to childcare issues. By combining information on mothers’ work status and reasons for not working with earnings data for working mothers of young children, it is estimated New Zealand mothers with children under age three who are not working only because they can’t access childcare may be foregoing $116 million or more of wages each year.