Hidden work-family challenges in the low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review of causes, consequences, and policy responses

• Agricultural and informal sector jobs are often incompatible with caregiving: long hours and poor conditions offset gains from flexibility. • In LMICs, the motherhood penalty often leads women to move into flexible but lower-quality jobs rather than leaving the labor force. • Economically disadvantaged mothers often increase their labor supply in precarious jobs after childbirth, driven by financial necessity. • These poverty-driven work–family trade-offs are associated with adverse child health and developmental outcomes. • Childcare provision improves gender equality and child outcomes, while cash transfers and paid leave show mixed effects. Work–family challenges are a major barrier to gender equality and contribute to the intergenerational reproduction of inequalities by undermining child development from the earliest stages of life. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), however, these tensions remain poorly captured by prevailing metrics, data, and frameworks. Drawing on a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies published between 2000 and 2024, this article shows that motherhood penalties in LMICs are expressed through poverty-driven sectoral shifts into lower-quality jobs, heightened time poverty and what we term a work-family trade-off, where maternal employment in precarious conditions is associated with worse child health and developmental outcomes. We synthesize evidence on how micro-, meso- and macro-level factors jointly shape these patterns and highlight a “flexibility trap”: informal and agricultural jobs that appear compatible with caregiving in theory often deepen work-family tensions in practice. We then review empirical evidence on three family policy domains (i.e., paid leave, cash transfers, and early childhood education and care (ECEC)) showing that ECEC most consistently improves both women’s employment quality and child outcomes, while cash transfers primarily ease poverty-driven labor responses and paid leave yield mixed effects in high-informality settings. Building on these findings, we develop a conceptual framework that locates “poverty-driven work-family challenges” at the center of LMIC experiences. The review concludes with design principles for family policies and a research agenda that better captures hidden work-family tensions in LMICs.