Who Benefits from Universal Child Care? Estimating Marginal Returns to Early Child Care Attendance

S-Tier
Journal: Journal of Political Economy
Year: 2018
Volume: 126
Issue: 6
Pages: 2356 - 2409

Authors (4)

Thomas Cornelissen (not in RePEc) Christian Dustmann (not in RePEc) Anna Raute (not in RePEc) Uta Schönberg (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 4 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We examine heterogeneous treatment effects of a universal child care program in Germany by exploiting variation in attendance caused by a reform that led to a large expansion staggered across municipalities. Drawing on novel administrative data from the full population of compulsory school entry examinations, we find that children with lower (observed and unobserved) gains are more likely to select into child care than children with higher gains. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to attend child care than children from advantaged backgrounds but have larger treatment effects because of their worse outcome when not enrolled in child care.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/699979
Journal Field
General
Author Count
4
Added to Database
2026-01-25