Do type of childcare and age of entry predict behavior problems during early childhood? Results from a large Norwegian longitudinal study.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how daycare facilities or family daycare (Norwegian: familiebarnehage) are related to behavioural problems among Norwegian children. More specifically the study aims to investigate whether being in a daycare centre or in family daycare during the first three years of life is related to behavioural problems. Behavioural problems may be of external character, such as problems with concentration and aggression, or of internal character such as emotional reactions, anxiety and restlessness in three-year old children. Moreover, the study investigates whether there is an association between the type of daycare facility and age of entry into the daycare facility, and any behavioural problems seen in relation to the child’s gender, the parents’ level of education and the family’s income.

The study does not find any association between behavioural problems, the child’s gender and indicators of the parents’ level of education and income. The researcher concludes that the results of the study support the assumption that there are no disadvantageous behavioural consequences for children in daycare centres in the first three years of life, especially not in a Norwegian context in which public daycare centres are generally of high quality.
The study shows that children who enter into family daycare at the age of one have a higher risk of developing both external and internal behavioural problems by the age of three compared to children who are cared for at home or at a daycare centre. External behavioural problems may be problems with concentration and aggression, whereas internal behavioural problems can be emotional reactions, anxiety and restlessness. Moreover, the study shows that children who enter into municipal daycare at the age of 18 months have a lower risk of developing internal behavioural problems than children who are cared for at home.

The study uses data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). MoBa collected data from 108,000 children and their mothers in the period 1999-2008. The study was launched in 1999 by inviting pregnant women undergoing a routine scan in their 17th week of pregnancy to take part in the study through a questionnaire survey. Data was collected at the 17th, 22nd and 30th week of their pregnancy, and when their child was six, 18 and 36 months old, respectively. In the MoBa study, this data set was compared with register data from the Norwegian medical birth register. In this specific study, a total of 73,068 children took part, 42,669 of whom had answered all six questionnaires, i.e. up to an including the questionnaire answered when the child was 36 months old.

Lekhal, R. (2012). Do type of childcare and age of entry predict behavior problems during early childhood? Results from a large Norwegian longitudinal study. International Journal of Behavioral Development 36(3), 197-204.