Keep it in the family? Universal child care, child development and intra-household conflict.

The objective of this study is to elucidate how children’s development is influenced by whether they have attended kindergarten or not, as well as to what degree poor access to childcare prevents mothers from participating on the labour market. 

The study shows that state-supported daycare facilities have a
positive effect on children’s outcome as adults in their early 30s. The effect is greatest in the children of women with low income. The study also shows that the reform increased social welfare by 3%. Despite a strong correlation, the study shows that there is little causal effect on women’s participation on the labour market as a consequence of daycare facilities.

The study is designed as a retrospective cohort study. Econometric techniques have been applied to find causal effects. Data was collected from the Civil Registration System, Statistics Norway and the Norwegian Social Insurance Scheme. Norwegian children born between 1967 and 1976 were sampled. This means that 575,300 children have been analysed on 10 birth cohorts. The study thus includes children, who, to a larger or lesser extent, were influenced by the Norwegian childcare reform from 1975.

Havnes, T. (2009). Keep it in the family? Universal child care, child development and intra-household conflict. Oslo: Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, Universitetet i Oslo.