Universal Child Care, Maternal Employment, and Children’s Long-Run Outcomes: Evidence from the US Lanham Act of 1940

What is the Added Value of Preschool for Poor Children? Long-Term and Intergenerational Impacts and Interactions with an Infant Health Intervention

“…We also find negative (but statistically insignificant) interaction coefficients when we consider survival beyond age 65 and the education of the next generation as outcomes. These results, which show that the marginal benefit of preschool is lower for individuals exposed to NHV at birth, are consistent with other studies documenting that the impacts of preschool are largest for the least advantaged children (Bitler et al, 2014;Havnes andMogstad, 2011, 2015;Cascio, 2015;Herbst, 2017;Thompson, 2017). However, unlike prior work, we identify heterogeneous returns to preschool across individuals who differ in their early life environments due to a program-driven source of variation: Our estimates imply that high quality preschool can compensate for initial disadvantages in health, as measured by a lack of NHV.…”

Parental Employment Effects of Switching from Half-Day to Full-Day Kindergarten: Evidence from Ontario’s French Schools

“…Studies of subsidized early child care have found increased family labour supply to be one of the key benefits. Labour supply effects have been examined for a range of programs, most notably for kindergarten and pre-kindergarten programs in the U.S. (Gelbach, 2002;Cascio, 2009;Cascio and Schanzenbach, 2013;Fitzpatrick, 2010;Fitzpatrick, 2012;Herbst, 2017), for subsidized day care (Baker, Milligan and Gruber, 2008;Lefebvre and Merrigan, 2008;Lefebvre, Merrigan and Verstraete, 2009;Haeck, Lefebvre and Merrigan, 2015), and for other child care subsidy programs (Hardoy and Schone, 2015).…”

“…This policy change is a particularly attractive case to study, since unlike other policy changes that have been studied, including the subsidization of public kindergarten in the US (Cascio, 2009;Herbst, 2017) and the provision of subsidized day care and the related extension of kindergarten from half-day to fullday in Quebec (Baker, Gruber and Milligan, 2008;Lefebvre and Merrigan, 2008;Haeck et al, 2015;Dhuey, Lamontagne, and Zhang, 2019), the program affected only a small proportion of parents in identifiable (Francophone) families in the geographic areas where it was introduced. Consequently, we can control for local labour market conditions in a way that is not possible in most similar studies.…”

Supplemental Security Income and Child Outcomes: Evidence from Birth Weight Eligibility Cutoffs

“…In addition, a number of studies examine other programs and show stronger effects for low-SES groups. For example, the WIC program(Hoynes, Page, Stevens, 2011); the Food Stamp program(Hoynes, Schanzenbach, and Almond, 2016); childcare(Herbst, 2017); and early childhood education(Kearney and Levine, 2015) all benefit individuals from low-SES households more than individuals from high-SES households.17 While most SSI recipients receive publicly-provided insurance through the Medicaid program, the way in which the two programs are linked varies by state. Additionally, each state determines the generosity of services covered by its program.…”