Life-cycle effects of public childcare: Evidence on children and their parents

Mikko Silliman and Juuso Mäkinen

No 26004, RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series from ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin)

Abstract: This paper provides large-scale evidence linking the economic effects of childcare programs to social skills measured in adulthood. We examine Finland's first national public childcare program, and document that it increased parental labor supply - through retirement - while reducing the intergenerational persistence of income. Critically, we leverage Finnish Defence Forces data on the near population of males to show that effects on children's adult income are underlied by lasting effects on social skills. Further, we show that life-cycle cost-effectiveness estimates based on the assumption of constant effects after typical observation windows can considerably overestimate the net costs of public childcare.

Keywords: early childhood; social skills; parental labor supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 J08 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-01
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crm:wpaper:26004

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