The Impact of Free Early Childhood Education and Care on Educational Achievement: a Discontinuity Approach Investigating Both Quantity and Quality of Provision

Joanne Blanden, Emilia Del Bono, Kirstine Hansen and Birgitta Rabe
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Kirstine Hansen: University College London

No 617, School of Economics Discussion Papers from School of Economics, University of Surrey

Abstract: In this paper we analyse whether entitlement to free part-time early childhood education and care at 3 years old affects educational attainment in the first year of primary school. Our identification strategy exploits date-of-birth discontinuities that lead to some children born just a few days apart being entitled to different amounts of free pre-school (up to 3.5 months) while starting school at the same time and within the same cohort. Using administrative data on all state school pupils in England, we carry out a regression discontinuity analysis and find that eligibility to free part-time early education and care results in a zero overall effect on educational achievement at age 5. This is true for advantaged and disadvantaged groups and for children attending high and low quality provision.

Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2017-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sur:surrec:0617

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