Effects of early childhood development interventions on parental behaviour: evidence from a home-visiting programme in Peru

Juan Castro

No 15-07, Working Papers from Centro de Investigación, Universidad del Pacífico

Abstract: Home-visiting interventions aim at improving child outcomes by shifting caregivers’ parenting skills so they can offer better stimulation opportunities to their children. Despite this explicit objective, there is little evidence from the developing world regarding the effects of the home-visiting model on the provision of stimulation by caregivers. There is also a lack of evidence from programmes working at scale and little attention paid to the mechanisms through which these interventions affect parental behaviour. This analysis seeks to contribute to the literature on ECD interventions in two ways. First, it provides causal evidence about the effects of a scaled-up home-visiting programme on caregiver behaviour. Second, it explores the constraints that limit this behavioural change and offers a way of thinking about its mechanisms that is consistent with the evidence. I use the cluster-randomised design of the home-visiting component of programme Cuna Mas in Peru to collect data from 20 control and 20 treatment rural districts on parenting practices and caregivers’ beliefs regarding the importance of parent-child interactions for child development. Results reveal that: (i) treatment effects on the quality of the home environment are positive, statistically significant (p

Keywords: Early childhood development; home visiting interventions; parenting practices; Peru (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 I38 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-04
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pai:wpaper:15-07

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