States can contribute to closing gender gaps by implementing public policies and laws that allow for the redistribution of unpaid care work among other actors in society. Recent studies show that childcare programs can promote women's participation in the labor market. From this perspective, this research examines to what extent the public childcare program De Cero a Siempre can have effects on women's economic autonomy in Colombia. This research contributes to the discussion on the relationship between public childcare policies and the reduction of gender gaps. A triple difference identification strategy is used, exploiting the variation in the phased implementation of the program across municipalities, household eligibility criteria for program access, and temporal variation. The results suggest that care policies can have unexpected effects on women's labor force participation and, likewise, on their income generation.
