Early Childcare and Cognitive Development: Evidence from an Assignment Lottery

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Drange, Nina; Havnes, Tarjei
• 署名单位: Statistics Norway; University of Oslo
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/700193
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 581-620
• 关键词: preschool attendance; head-start; outcomes; POLICY

摘要

Young children are thought to be vulnerable to separation from their primary caregiver. This raises concern about whether early childcare enrollment may harm child development. We use childcare assignment lotteries to estimate the effect of enrollment at age 1-2 on cognitive development in Norway. Estimates show significant gains in language and mathematics at age 6-7 and a substantial drop in scores below publicly set thresholds for low performance. Across subsamples, we find a pattern of stronger effects on underperforming groups. We find little support for childcare quality or family income as drivers of our results.