Can Intensive Early Childhood Intervention Programs Eliminate Income-Based Cognitive and Achievement Gaps?

Greg Duncan () and Aaron Sojourner

No 7087, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: How much of the income-based gaps in cognitive ability and academic achievement could be closed by a two-year, center-based early childhood education intervention? Data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), which randomly assigned treatment to low birth weight children from both higher- and low-income families between ages one and three, shows much larger impacts among low- than higher-income children. Projecting IHDP impacts to the U.S. population's IQ and achievement trajectories suggests that such a program offered to low-income children would essentially eliminate the income-based gap at age three and between a third and three-quarters of the age-five and age-eight gaps.

Keywords: education; early childhood; government policy; skill formation; human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I2 I3 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 pages
Date: 2012-12
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - published in: Journal of Human Resources, 2013, 48 (4), 945-986.

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