Kindergarten for all: Long run effects of a universal intervention

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractTheory and evidence point towards particularly positive effects of high-quality child care for disadvantaged children. At the same time, disadvantaged families often sort out of existing programs. To counter differences in learning outcomes between children from different socioeconomic backgrounds, governments are pushing for universal child care. However, it is unclear how effective programs with universal participation may be at addressing the needs of disadvantaged children. We provide evidence on the long-run effect on schooling of mandating kindergarten at age 5-6. Our identifying variation comes from a reform that lowered school starting-age from 7 to 6 in Norway in 1997. The new program was designed as a low intensity kindergarten program, similar to voluntary child care programs available before mandating. Our precise DD estimates reveal hardly any effect, both overall, across subsamples, and over the grading distribution. A battery of specification checks support our empirical strategy.

Can’t buy mommy’s love? Universal childcare and children’s long-term cognitive development

“…Most of the existing studies analyzing the consequences of public childcare crowding out family care focus on short-run effects on children's outcomes (Datta Gupta and Simonsen 2010;Felfe and Lalive 2012). The only exception is Drange et al (2012) who analyze the consequences of a reform in Norway in 1997 that lowered the mandatory school starting age from 7 to 6 in terms of children's cognitive outcomes at the end of mandatory schooling. In contrast to our paper, their paper finds no significant effects, although the following differences between the two studies might explain the conflicting evidence.…”

Life-cycle and intergenerational effects of child care reforms

“…We can construct measures of child-specific child care usage from this register. For the years prior to the reform, child care attendance can be inferred using information on tax deductions for child care expenses from tax records of the parents (Black, Devereux, Løken, and Salvanes (2014), Drange, Havnes, and Sandsør (2016)). Parents are allowed to deduct up to 25,000 NOK (≈ 4310 USD) from taxes in one calendar year for the first child for formal child care.…”

Economic Effects of Workfare Reforms for Single Mothers: Benefit Substitution and Labour Supply Responses*

“…Drange et al . () show no effect of this mandatory reform on the labour market attachments of mothers. Moreover, the inclusion of year fixed effects in our estimated model (see Section for the identification strategy) would wipe out any potential effects of this reform.…”