The burden of extra childcare on families during the Covid-19 pandemic has been enormous.

Children around the world required a collective 615 billion extra hours of care as they were left home from school—a conservative estimate that assumed children would otherwise only be in school for five hours, according to a study published today by the Center for Global Development, an organization researching economic policies to reduce poverty. Most of this unpaid work was taken on by parents, and disproportionately by women, who provide 75% of childcare work in developing countries, and over 65% in wealthy ones.