Researchers estimate 35 million under-fives in poorest countries are left on their own or with a very young sibling

Tens of millions of children under the age of five are regularly being left alone while their parents go to work, according to a groundbreaking report on the “hidden crisis” of childcare around the world.



Babies under 12 months old are among those left alone, or in the care of siblings younger than 10, for at least one hour a week, the report finds.

In the poorest countries, lack of parental leave, pre-school education or creches – or the money to pay for them – left women facing the agonising choice between not earning money to feed their family, taking children to work or leaving them at home alone, say researchers.



Many mothers said they feared their children risked injury, or that their behaviour and development would suffer due to loneliness. Separately, medical studies have shown that a lack of supervision leads to more children being hurt or killed by accidents, such as poisoning or drowning.

We would give the children a small dose of opium so that they would sleep for 8-10 hours Working mother

“As families are squeezed between the twin demands of work inside the home and outside, millions of children are being left alone and uncared for, with disastrous consequences for their welfare and sometimes their lives,” says the report from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) thinktank.



Children as young as five, but more often young adolescents, are being left to look after the youngest members of the family, missing out on schooling and perpetuating the cycle of poverty, the report warns.

“Mothers are forced to choose between their earning potential and their daughter’s education,” it adds. “This is a choice no mother should be forced to make, and no child should have to live with.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Children learning at a mobile creche on the outskirts of Delhi. Photograph: Atul Loke/ODI

One case study illustrating the report describes women working in tobacco fields and factories in the western Indian state of Gujarat. With their partners either having left home or working long hours themselves, a group of five women in the town of Anand said the family would have no food if they did not go out to earn. Even with a job, often they could only make tea and roti flatbreads for breakfast. Many of their children were malnourished

Some mothers were forbidden from taking children to factories, others worried the tiny tobacco particles got into the children’s stomachs and lungs, citing frequent bouts of asthma and tuberculosis.

“Our children used to play outside in the mud and eat mud and other stuff lying around,” said a spokeswoman for the group.

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Worried, also, about wild animal attacks, and reluctant to make older children miss their education, many women took more drastic precautions to keep their children safe. “We would lock our children at home when we went to work,” said the spokeswoman. “We would give the children a small dose of opium so that they would sleep for eight to 10 hours.

“Our children would lie there in soiled nappies until we came back. Often our children would cry continuously, and fall down from the cradle [and] we would only know when we returned.”

Researchers for the UK-based ODI analysed data from Unicef, the UN’s charity for children, on 53 of the poorest countries and estimated that more than 35 million children under five were being left alone – or with a very young sibling – for at least one hour a week, though often much longer.

This equates to nearly one in three of the youngest children in those countries, the same number as all the children under five in Europe, says the report, entitled Women’s work: Mothers, children and the global childcare crisis

Two factors increasing the pressures were the exponential rise in women going to work, and climate change and local environmental problems adding to the time taken to grow food and collect water and fuel.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Children playing at a mobile creche in Delhi. Photograph: Atul Loke/ODI

“These [53] countries only represent 20% of the world’s under-fives,” said Claire Melamed, the ODI’s director of poverty and inequality, and co-author of the report. “In practice this problem is mainly concentrated in poor countries, but we can be sure the true number of under-fives left alone is going to be much higher.”

Other case studies in the report describe some among the millions of women who rely on their own parents – themselves sometimes vulnerable to illnesses and exhaustion and in need of care – to look after their children while they work.

All the case studies illustrated childcare projects that helped women earn more money while their children were safer, and usually went on to a better education.

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In Gujarat’s tobacco farming region, for example, the Self-Employed Women’s Association, a trade union, has set up 20 childcare centres for 900 children up to six years old. Mothers reported they now had more money to cook nutritious meals, elder children were going to school more often, and infant mortality had decreased.



The report calls for more political focus on the problem, arguing that remedies cannot be left to charities and more socially progressive companies.

Measures recommended by the report include longer-opening nurseries that would allow women to work longer hours, and state benefits so a parent can afford to stay at home when their children are very young.

“It’s incremental [and] a lot of things are expensive,” said Melamed. “[But] doing nothing doesn’t work.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Children in Mexico. Photograph: Aldeas Infantiles

• This article was amended on 4 March 2016 to update the title of the report from Who is Minding the Baby?, to Women’s work: Mothers, children and the global childcare crisis.

