Preschool, Day Care, and Afterschool Care: Who's Minding the Kids?

Abstract

The majority of children in the U.S. and many other high-income nations are now cared for many hours per week by people who are neither their parents nor their school teachers. The role of such preschool and out of school care is potentially twofold: First, child care makes it feasible for parents to be employed. Second, early intervention programs and after school programs aim to enhance child development, particularly among disadvantaged children. Corresponding to this distinction, the literature has two branches. The first focuses on the market for child care and analyzes factors affecting the supply, demand, and quality of care. The second focuses on child outcomes and asks whether certain types of programs can ameliorate the effects of early disadvantage. The primary goal of this review is to bring the two literatures together in order to suggest ways that both may be enhanced. Accordingly, we provide an overview of the number of children being cared for in different sorts of arrangements; describe theory and evidence about the nature of the private child care market; and discuss theory and evidence about government intervention in the market for child care. Our summary suggests that additional research is necessary to highlight the ways that government programs and market provided child care interact with each other.

A question of quality: do children from disadvantaged backgrounds receive lower quality early childhood education and care?

“…Two distinct dimensions of quality provision in this sense have been identified: structural indicators and process indicators (Munton et al 1995;Sylva 2010;Blau and Currie 2006). Some writers have also pointed to child outcomes as a third measure of quality, but using outcomes as a measure of provider quality is problematic in the absence of a baseline or control group, or at least rich controls.…”

Efficiency and equity of European education and training policies

“…the surveys in Barnett 1992Barnett , 1995Currie 2001;Carneiro and Heckman 2003;Blau and Currie 2006;Cunha et al 2006). …”

Investing in Our Young People

“…See the studies surveyed in CHLM or Blau & Currie (2006). Schooling quality and school resources have relatively small effects on ability deficits and have little effect on test scores by age across children from different socioeconomic groups, as displayed in Figure 1 and related graphs (see Heckman, Larenas, &Urzua, 2004, andRaudenbush, 2006).…”