Centre-based versus home-based childcare

Robert Bauchmüller

No 2013-026, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: Centrebased childcare is seen as a public investment to facilitate maternalemployment. Recent theoretical research proposes that such investmentspotentially lead to substantial gains in child development and thus to high returnsfor society as a whole. However, the empirical evidence is still scarce and oftencontradictory. This study is based on rich survey data of a largescale cohort studyof children living in the Netherlands at the beginning of the new millennium. TheNetherlands has made substantial investments in the last two decades to make themarket of centrebased provisions more professional and farreaching and toimprove childrens school readiness. I study the impact of experiencing centreratherthan homebased childcare on language, cognitive and noncognitive development, assessed at the age of 6. To assess whether very long or intensive childcare spells can be harmful, I account for possible nonlinearity in the correlation between the centrebased childcare experience and the child outcomes. As sensitivity analyses, I also apply instrumental variable and structural equation modelling approaches to try to correct for potential biases in my estimates that would result, for example, from unobserved heterogeneity of parents and children. For both ordinary least square estimates as well as the sensitivity analyses the results do not support the significant shortterm effects of centrebased childcare stated in the literature.

Keywords: Analysis of Education; Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 J13 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2013/wp2013-026.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2013026

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ad Notten ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).