Arbeitspapier

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

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.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 4978

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

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Havnes, Tarjei
Mogstad, Magne
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
(where)
Bonn
(when)
2010

Handle
Last update
20.09.2024, 8:21 AM CEST

Data provider

This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.

Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Havnes, Tarjei
  • Mogstad, Magne
  • Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Time of origin

  • 2010

Other Objects (12)