Labor Market Returns to Early Childhood Stimulation: a 20-year Followup to an Experimental Intervention in Jamaica

Paul Gertler, James Heckman, Rodrigo Pinto, Arianna Zanolini, Christel Vermeersch, Susan Walker, Susan M. Chang and Sally Grantham-McGregor

No 19185, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We find large effects on the earnings of participants from a randomized intervention that gave psychosocial stimulation to stunted Jamaican toddlers living in poverty. The intervention consisted of one-hour weekly visits from community Jamaican health workers over a 2-year period that taught parenting skills and encouraged mothers to interact and play with their children in ways that would develop their children's cognitive and personality skills. We re-interviewed the study participants 20 years after the intervention. Stimulation increased the average earnings of participants by 42 percent. Treatment group earnings caught up to the earnings of a matched non-stunted comparison group. These findings show that psychosocial stimulation early in childhood in disadvantaged settings can have substantial effects on labor market outcomes and reduce later life inequality.

JEL-codes: I10 I20 I25 J20 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-dev, nep-exp, nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-ltv
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Published as Science 30 May 2014: Vol. 344 no. 6187 pp. 998-1001 DOI: 10.1126/science.1251178 Report Labor market returns to an early childhood stimulation intervention in Jamaica Paul Gertler1,2,*, James Heckman3,4,5, Rodrigo Pinto3, Arianna Zanolini3, Christel Vermeersch6, Susan Walker7, Susan M. Chang7, Sally Grantham-McGregor8

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Working Paper: Labor Market Returns to Early Childhood Stimulation: A 20-year Followup to an Experimental Intervention in Jamaica (2013)
Working Paper: Labor market returns to early childhood stimulation: a 20-year followup to an experimental intervention in Jamaica (2013)
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