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Highlights • In addition to time-saving infrastructure, maternal time provides key inputs for children’s cognitive development. • Children living in households that relying on free collection of water and firewood have lower educational outcomes. • The negative impacts are greater when women bear a disproportionate burden of these unpaid activities. • Gender inequality in unpaid work is associated with lower educational outcomes, particularly for boys., Investments in clean fuel and piped water are often recommended in developing countries on health grounds. This paper examines an alternative channel, the relationship between piped water and access to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and children’s educational outcomes. Results based on the second round of the India Human Development Survey (2011–12) for rural India show that children aged 6–14 years, living in households that rely on free collection of water and cooking fuel, have lower mathematics scores and benefit from lower educational expenditures than children living in households that do not collect water and fuel. Moreover, gender inequality in this unpaid work burden also matters. In households where the burden of collection is disproportionately borne by women, child outcomes are significantly lower, particularly for boys. The endogeneity of choice to collect or purchase water and cooking fuel are modeled via Heckman selection and the entropy balancing method.

In recent years, educational research has highlighted the importance of understanding children’s learning as embedded in the social, cultural and family contexts in which it occurs (Alanen, Brooker and Mayell, 2015). This has led to an increasing focus on the role of parents and the ‘home learning environment’, and many studies have identified the profound influence these may have on children’s learning and development both within and beyond formal educational settings (Hayes, O’Toole and Halpenny, 2017). Extensive international research shows that children do better when their parents are actively involved with their education (Borgonovi and Montt, 2012; Desforges and Aboucaar, 2003; Emerson, Fear, Fox and Sanders, 2012; Goodall and Vorhaus, 2008). Thus, designing learning environments to maximise opportunities for bridging communication between children’s home and school may be a significant factor in children’s educational outcomes (Hayes et al., 2017). National Council for Curriculum and Assessment National Parents Council