The First 2,000 Days and Child Skills: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment of Home Visiting

Orla Doyle

No 2017-054, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: Using a randomized experiment, this study investigates the impact of sustained investment in parenting, from pregnancy until age five, in the context of extensive welfare provision. Providing the Preparing for Life program, incorporating home visiting, group parenting, and baby massage, to disadvantaged Irish families raises children's cognitive and socio-emotional/behavioral scores by two-thirds and one-quarter of a standard deviation respectively by school entry. There are few differential effects by gender and stronger gains for firstborns. The results also suggest that socioeconomic gaps in children's skills are narrowed. Analyses account for small sample size, differential attrition, multiple testing, contamination, and performance bias.

Keywords: early childhood intervention; cognitive skills; socio-emotional skills; behavioral skills; randomized controlled trial; multiple-hypothesis testing; permutation testing; inverse probability weighting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D13 I26 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-neu and nep-ure
Note: ECI
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Doyle_ ... 2000-days-skills.pdf First version, July 10, 2017 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The First 2,000 Days and Child Skills: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment of Home Visiting (2017)
Working Paper: The First 2,000 Days and Child Skills: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment of Home Visiting (2017)
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