EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Effect of the Jamaica Early Childhood Stimulation Intervention on Labor Market Outcomes at Age 31

Paul Gertler, James Heckman, Rodrigo Pinto, Susan M. Chang, Sally Grantham-McGregor, Christel Vermeersch, Susan Walker and Amika Wright

No 29292, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We report the labor market effects of the Jamaica Early Childhood Stimulation intervention at age 31. The study is a small-sample randomized early childhood education stimulation intervention targeting stunted children living in the poor neighborhoods of Kingston, Jamaica. Implemented in 1987-1989, treatment consisted of a two-year home-based intervention designed to improve nutrition and the quality of mother-child interactions to foster cognitive, language and psycho-social skills. The original sample is 127 stunted children between 9 and 24 months old. Our study is able to track and interview 75% of the original sample 30 years after the intervention, both still living in Jamaica and migrated abroad. We find large and statistically significant effects on income and schooling; the treatment group had 43% higher hourly wages and 37% higher earnings than the control group. This is a substantial increase over the treatment effect estimated for age 22 where we observed a 25% increase in earnings. The Jamaican Study is a rare case of a long-term follow up for an early childhood development (ECD) intervention implemented in a less-developed country. Our results confirm large economic returns to an early childhood intervention that targeted disadvantaged families living in poverty in the poor neighborhoods of Jamaica. The Jamaican intervention is being replicated around the world. Our analysis provides justification for expanding ECD interventions targeting disadvantaged children living in poor countries around the world.

JEL-codes: C31 I21 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-lab, nep-ltv and nep-ure
Note: CH DEV ED EH LS PE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w29292.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Effect of the Jamaica Early Childhood Stimulation Intervention on Labor Market Outcomes at Age 31 (2021) Downloads
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:nbr:nberwo:29292

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w29292

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-31
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29292