Is universal child care leveling the playing field? Evidence from non-linear difference-in-differences

Arbeitspapier

Advocates of a universal child care system offer a two-fold argument: Child care facilitates children's long-run development, and levels the playing field by benefiting in particular disadvantaged children. Therefore, a critical element in evaluating universal child care systems is to measure the impact on child development in a way that allows the effects to vary systematically over the outcome distribution. Using non-linear DD methods, we investigate how the introduction of large-scale, publicly subsidized child care in Norway affected the earnings distribution of exposed children as adults. We find that mean impacts miss a lot: While child care had a small and insignificant mean impact, effects were positive over the bulk of the earnings distribution, and sizable below the median. This is an important observation since previous empirical studies of universal child care have focused on mean impacts. We further demonstrate that the essential features of our empirical findings could not have been revealed using mean impact analysis on typically defined subgroups. This is because the intragroup variation in the child care effects is relatively large compared to the intergroup variation in mean impacts.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 4978

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth ; Publicly Provided Goods: General ; Education: Government Policy ; Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
• Thema: Universal child care ; child development ; non-linear difference-in-differences ; heterogeneity ; distributional effects ; Kinderbetreuung ; Familienpolitik ; Bildungsertrag ; Verteilungswirkung ; Nichtlineares Verfahren ; Statistischer Test ; Norwegen

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Havnes, Tarjei ; Mogstad, Magne
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2010

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/36832
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 20.09.2024, 08:21 MESZ