Wealth Gradients in Early Childhood Cognitive Development in Five Latin American Countries

Arbeitspapier

Research from the United States shows that gaps in early cognitive and non-cognitive ability appear early in the life cycle. Little is known about this important question for developing countries. This paper provides new evidence of sharp differences in cognitive development by socioeconomic status in early childhood for five Latin American countries. To help with comparability, we use the same measure of receptive language ability for all five countries. We find important differences in development in early childhood across countries, and steep socioeconomic gradients within every country. For the three countries where we can follow children over time, there are few substantive changes in scores once children enter school. Our results are robust to different ways of defining socioeconomic status, to different ways of standardizing outcomes, and to selective non-response on our measure of cognitive development.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 12107

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Education and Inequality ; Education and Economic Development
• Subject: cognitive development ; poverty ; gradients

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Schady, Norbert ; Behrman, Jere R. ; Caridad Araujo, Maria ; Azuero, Rodrigo ; Bernal, Raquel ; Bravo, David ; López Bóo, Florencia ; Macours, Karen ; Marshall, Daniela ; Paxson, Christina ; Vakis, Renos
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/193401
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET