New Evidence on the Impacts of Access to and Attending Universal Childcare in Canada

Michael J. Kottelenberg and Steven Lehrer ()

No 18785, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In Canada, advocates of universal child care often point to policies implemented in Quebec as providing a model for early education and care policies in other provinces. While these policies have proven to be incredibly popular among citizens, initial evaluations of access to these programs indicated they led to a multitude of undesirable child developmental, health and family outcomes. These research findings ignited substantial controversy and criticism. In this study, we show the robustness of the initial analyses to i) concerns over whether negative outcomes would vanish over time as suppliers gained experience providing child care, ii) concerns regarding multiple testing, and iii) concerns that the original test measured the causal impact of childcare availability and not child care attendance. A notable exception is that despite estimated effects stemming from the policy indicating declines in motor-social development scores in Quebec relative to the rest of Canada, our analyses imply that on average attending childcare in Canada leads to a significant increase in this test score. However, our analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity in program impacts that occur in response to the Quebec policies and indicates that most of the negative impacts reported in earlier research are driven by children from families who only attended childcare in response to the implementation of this policy.

JEL-codes: C31 H2 I28 J2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem
Note: CH PE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

Published as Michael J. Kottelenberg & Steven F. Lehrer, 2013. "New Evidence on the Impacts of Access to and Attending Universal Child-Care in Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 39(2), pages 263-286, June.

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Journal Article: New Evidence on the Impacts of Access to and Attending Universal Child-Care in Canada (2013)
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