Working Paper: NBER ID: w18785
Authors: Michael J. Kottelenberg; Steven F. Lehrer
Abstract: In Canada, advocates of universal child care often point to policies implemented in Quebec as providing a model for early education and care policies in other provinces. While these policies have proven to be incredibly popular among citizens, initial evaluations of access to these programs indicated they led to a multitude of undesirable child developmental, health and family outcomes. These research findings ignited substantial controversy and criticism. In this study, we show the robustness of the initial analyses to i) concerns over whether negative outcomes would vanish over time as suppliers gained experience providing child care, ii) concerns regarding multiple testing, and iii) concerns that the original test measured the causal impact of childcare availability and not child care attendance. A notable exception is that despite estimated effects stemming from the policy indicating declines in motor-social development scores in Quebec relative to the rest of Canada, our analyses imply that on average attending childcare in Canada leads to a significant increase in this test score. However, our analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity in program impacts that occur in response to the Quebec policies and indicates that most of the negative impacts reported in earlier research are driven by children from families who only attended childcare in response to the implementation of this policy.
Keywords: Universal childcare; Quebec family policy; Child development; Causal impact
JEL Codes: C31; H2; I28; J2
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Access to universal childcare (J13) | Significant declines in various child developmental, behavioral, and health outcomes (I12) |
| Attending childcare (J13) | Increase in motor-social development scores (I24) |
| Policy implementation (D78) | Children from families began attending childcare (J13) |
| Maternal employment rates increase (J12) | Childcare uptake increase (J13) |
| Certain family backgrounds (J12) | Worse outcomes from attending childcare (J13) |