Application Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment

Henning Hermes, Philipp Lergetporer (philipp.lergetporer@tum.de), Frauke Peter and Simon Wiederhold (simon.wiederhold@iwh-halle.de)
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Philipp Lergetporer: Technical University of Munich

No 16915, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Why are children with lower socioeconomic status (SES) substantially less likely to be enrolled in child care? We study whether barriers in the application process work against lower-SES children — the group known to benefit strongest from child care enrollment. In an RCT in Germany with highly subsidized child care (N = 607), we offer treated families information and personal assistance for applications. We find substantial, equity-enhancing effects of the treatment, closing half of the large SES gap in child care enrollment. Increased enrollment for lower-SES families is likely driven by altered application knowledge and behavior. We discuss scalability of our intervention and derive policy implications for the design of universal child care programs.

Keywords: child care; early childhood; application barriers; information; randomized controlled trial; educational inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I21 J13 J18 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 92 pages
Date: 2024-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - published online in: Journal of the European Economic Association , jvae054, 20 November 2024

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Related works:
Working Paper: Application Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment (2024)
Working Paper: Application barriers and the socioeconomic gap in child care enrollment (2024)
Working Paper: Application Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment (2021)
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