 Gender gaps in early childhood development in Latin America and the CaribbeanSamuel Berlinski, Anna Sanz-de-Galdeano and Alba Sóñora-Noya Economics & Human Biology, 2025, vol. 57, issue C Abstract: We examine gender gaps in early childhood cognitive and social-behavioral skills across several Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. Our study complements previous research focused on older children by analyzing the preschool period, a critical stage for lifelong human capital formation. We find that the female advantage commonly observed in school-aged children’s achievement, as well as in high school enrollment and completion in both high-income and LAC countries, is also frequently evident in early childhood within our sample of LAC countries. On average, girls outperform boys in various developmental measures and are less likely to exhibit externalizing behaviors. Furthermore, these gender gaps generally remain stable across the distributions of developmental outcomes. Unlike findings for older children in high-income countries, our results suggest that during early childhood in LAC, boys and girls do not show differential benefits from socioeconomic status or a more favorable home environment. Keywords: Early childhood development; Gender; Family disadvantage; Parental investments (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:57:y:2025:i:c:s1570677x2500005x DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2025.101472 Access Statistics for this article Economics & Human Biology is currently edited by J. Komlos, Inas R Kelly and Joerg Baten More articles in Economics & Human Biology from Elsevier |
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