Improving Parental Investments in Children: Experimental Evidence from The Gambia

Moussa Blimpo (), Pedro Carneiro, Pamela Jervis Ortiz (), Nathalie Lahire () and Todd Pugatch
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Moussa Blimpo: University of Toronto
Pamela Jervis Ortiz: Universidad de Chile
Nathalie Lahire: World Bank

No 17133, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study two early childhood programs in The Gambia for children between 0 and 3 years of age. The basic version of the program, called Baby Friendly Community Initiative (BFCI), provides parents with child health and nutrition information delivered through home visits and community meetings. A second version, called BFCI+, is center-based and adds cognitive stimulation to the basic version of the program through activities with children. Villages were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the program or to a control group that received neither. The BFCI+ program had moderate impacts on parental investments in children in terms of resources and time. Child language development improved for well-off parents or parents in the more well-off region. Poorer parents invested more in time spent with the children, whereas those who were more materially well-off spent more financial resources on the children. The basic version of the program, the BFCI, had no detectable impacts.

Keywords: early childhood development; cognitive stimulation; teacher training; The Gambia; randomized controlled trials; Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 I38 O15 O22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2024-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hea and nep-ltv
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