Labor market returns to early childhood stimulation: a 20-year followup to an experimental intervention in Jamaica

Susan Chang-Lopez, Paul Gertler, Sally Grantham-Mcgregor, James J. Heckman, Rodrigo Pinto, Christel M. J. Vermeersch, Susan Walker and Arianna Zanolini

No 6529, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper finds large effects on the earnings of participants from a randomized intervention that gave psychosocial stimulation to stunted Jamaican toddlers living in poverty. The intervention consisted of one-hour weekly visits from community Jamaican health workers over a 2-year period that taught parenting skills and encouraged mothers to interact and play with their children in ways that would develop their children's cognitive and personality skills. The authors re-interviewed the study participants 20 years after the intervention. Stimulation increased the average earnings of participants by 42 percent. Treatment group earnings caught up to the earnings of a matched non-stunted comparison group. These findings show that psychosocial stimulation early in childhood in disadvantaged settings can have substantial effects on labor market outcomes and reduce later life inequality.

Keywords: Labor Markets; Educational Sciences; Health Monitoring&Evaluation; Primary Education; Disease Control&Prevention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-dev, nep-exp, nep-lab, nep-lma, nep-ltv and nep-pke
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Related works:
Working Paper: Labor Market Returns to Early Childhood Stimulation: A 20-year Followup to an Experimental Intervention in Jamaica (2013)
Working Paper: Labor Market Returns to Early Childhood Stimulation: a 20-year Followup to an Experimental Intervention in Jamaica (2013)
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