Application Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment

Henning Hermes, Philipp Lergetporer, Frauke Peter and Simon Wiederhold ()
Additional contact information
Philipp Lergetporer: Technical University of Munich
Frauke Peter: German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies

No 2024-022, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

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: early childhood; educational inequality; randomized controlled trial (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I21 J13 J18 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-eur and nep-exp
Note: ECI
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Hermes ... E-gap-child-care.pdf First version, August 2024 (application/pdf)

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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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hka:wpaper:2024-022

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