Long-Term Educational Outcomes of Child Care Arrangements in Finland

Abstract

This study asks how Finnish 6-year-olds who stay at home before school start compare in educational outcomes with children who attend public day care. Earlier studies have shown that participation in public day care can enhance school performance especially among disadvantaged children. In Finland, the child home care allowance scheme supports the home care of 6-yearolds if they have a younger sibling under the age of 3 who is also not attending public day care. We used as outcome variables grade point average after compulsory school at age 15 to 16 and dichotomous variable measuring completion of further education by age 25. The study utilized data of the birth cohort 1987 (N = 4,928). The results show that staying at home before school start is associated with poorer school performance but not with completion of further education.

Parental Leave, (In)formal Childcare, and Long-Term Child Outcomes

“…The quasi-experimental evidence from Norway and Germany points towards the positive effects of formal childcare on child outcomes (e. g., Havnes and Mogstad, 2011;Cornelissen et al, 2018), whereas analyses in Canada and the United States come to the opposite conclusion (e. g., Baker et al, 2008;Herbst, 2013) or find only positive effects for children from particularly disadvantaged households (Fitzpatrick, 2008;Kottelenberg and Lehrer, 2017). Cash-for-care reforms that reduced maternal labor supply and enrolment in formal childcare and after-school care in Finland (Kosonen, 2014) and Norway (Drange and Rege, 2013), improved long-run educational outcomes in Norway (Bettinger et al, 2014), but had adverse effects on schooling outcomes in Finland (Hiilamo et al, 2018). Only a few studies provide evidence for children below the age of three.…”

Boosting employment in Finland

“…As a result, the costs of the unemployment tunnel increased substantially for large firms with more than 500 employees, while smaller firms enjoyed somewhat lower liabilities (Hakola and Uusitalo, 2005[10]). The reform is estimated to have reduced the risk of unemployment among older workers by 16% (Hakola and Uusitalo, 2005 [10]), most likely by restraining large employers from targeting older workers in collective dismissals (see below).…”

Socioeconomic background and gene-environment interplay in social stratification across the early life course

“…This has been found out to be true for various socioeconomic outcomes-including education, occupational status, and income (Björklund and Jäntti, 2000;Jäntti et al, 2006;Pfeffer, 2008;Erola, 2009;Grätz et al, 2019). The reasons for openness are subject to debate, but often cited explanations which include high-quality early childcare (Karhula et al, 2017;Hiilamo et al, 2018), high-quality and a free of charge educational system (Pekkarinen et al, 2006;OECD, 2008) and strong public support for the egalitarian welfare state (Forma, 2012).…”