Elsevier

Journal of Public Economics

Volume 159, March 2018, Pages 33-53
Journal of Public Economics

Does early child care affect children's development?☆

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.01.014Get rights and content
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open access

Highlights

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    We analyse the impact of early child care (ECC) on children's development in a marginal treatment effect framework.

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    We exploit a reform in Germany that induced school districts to expand ECC at different points in time.

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    We find strong but diverging effects on children's motor and socio-emotional skills.

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    Simulating expansions of ECC, we find that a moderate expansion fosters motor skills for all children and language skills for boys and immigrant children.

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    A progressive expansion of ECC improves all children's socio-emotional development but neither their motor skills nor their language skills.

Abstract

We study how early child care (ECC) affects children's development in a marginal treatment effect framework that allows for rich forms of observed and unobserved effect heterogeneity. Exploiting a reform in Germany that induced school districts to expand ECC at different points in time, we find strong but diverging effects on children's motor and socio-emotional skills. Children who were most likely to attend ECC benefit in terms of their motor skill development. Children who were least likely to attend ECC gain in terms of their socio-emotional skill development, especially boys and children from disadvantaged families, such as those with low education or migration backgrounds. Simulating expansions of ECC, we find that a moderate expansion fosters motor skills for all children and language skills for boys and immigrant children. A progressive expansion of ECC improves all children's socio-emotional development but neither their motor skills nor their language skills.

JEL classification

J13
I21
I38

Keywords

Early child care
Child development
Marginal treatment effects
Rationing

Cited by (0)

☆

We would like to thank Olof Aslund, Michael Baker, Mark Dusheiko, Martin Eckhoff Andresen, Maria Fitzpatrick, Eric French, Martin Huber, Steven Lehrer, Edwin Leuven, Michael Kosfeld, Patrick Kline, Claudia Senik, Marianne Simonsen, Mark Stabile, Sergio Urzua, Chris White, Ludger Wössmann, Danny Yagan, the editor and three anonymous referees for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. We presented the paper to seminar audiences at Ifo Institute Munich, UC Berkeley, University of Lausanne, University of Mannheim, University of Toronto, CIREQ Montreal, and Barcelona Summer Forum. We are indebted to the MSGWG (Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Science and Equality) of Schleswig Holstein/Germany, which granted us access and further information on their annual reports on the school entry examinations. In particular, we would like to thank our cooperation partners, Heidrun Thaiss, Ute Thyen and Sabine Brehm, for their support and thoughtful input. This publication benefited from the support of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES –Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives (NCCR LIVES), which is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number: 51NF40-160590). The authors are grateful to the Swiss National ScienceFoundation for its financial assistance. Christina Felfe acknowledges financial support from the Economic Policy Profile Area of the University of St. Gallen. Rafael Lalive thanks the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Economics for its hospitality while rewriting substantial parts of this paper. All remaining errors are our own.

© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.