Working Paper: NBER ID: w23412
Authors: Jorge Luis Garcia; James J. Heckman; Anna L. Ziff
Abstract: This paper studies the life-cycle impacts of a widely-emulated high-quality, intensive early childhood program with long-term follow up. The program starts early in life (at 8 weeks of age) and is evaluated by an RCT. There are multiple treatment effects which we summarize through interpretable aggregates. Girls have a greater number of statistically significant treatment effects than boys and effect sizes for them are generally bigger. The source of this difference is worse home environments for girls with greater scope for improvement by the program. Fathers of sons support their families more than fathers of daughters.
Keywords: early childhood program; gender differences; randomized controlled trial
JEL Codes: C93; I28; J13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| worse home environments for girls (I24) | greater scope for improvement through the program (I24) |
| fathers of sons support families more than fathers of daughters (J12) | differential treatment effects (C22) |
| Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC) (I21) | treatment outcomes (I12) |
| Carolina Approach to Responsive Education (CARE) (I24) | treatment outcomes (I12) |
| treatment (M53) | reduction of gaps in outcomes between males and females (I24) |
| treatment (M53) | larger effect sizes for females compared to males (J16) |
| treatment (M53) | higher proportion of positive treatment effects for females (J16) |
| treatment (M53) | benefits for both genders (J16) |