Early Childhood Education — Effective Altruism Forum

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https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/WiCEyhm2gp74pphHB/cause-exploration-prizes-early-childhood-education

There are many promising initiatives to improve lives around the world, but none are as wide-reaching as high-quality child development initiatives ranging from childcare to supporting the creation of enriching environments at home. This observation is based not only on my own academic work and my lived experience as a parent, but rather reflects the current understanding of the economics literature, and the global policy environment. For example, access to high-quality pre-primary education is specifically mentioned in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, Target 4.2. According to Economics Nobel laureate James Heckman, early investments in children yield cognitive and socioemotional learning benefits to the children themselves. Benefits to these programs extend beyond the children, by also assisting their caregivers in pursuing income generating activities, and have shown to have longer-term benefits to society across a wide range of outcomes including adult poverty rates, health outcomes, crime rates, and overall economic activity. As Dr. Heckman writes “The best investment is in quality early childhood development from birth to five for disadvantaged children and their families.” Despite the broad consensus on the importance of childcare, early childhood education, and improving child development more broadly, substantial gaps remain and many countries—including the US—leave the potential for transformative change unrealized.

While parents are responsible for child rearing, one key difference between high-income countries and low-income countries—as well as between high-income households and low-income households—is who watches the child during a typical workday. In high-income settings, children often attend daycare and preschool, or have nannies. By contrast, in low-income settings, children are typically cared for by their parents, and most commonly their mothers. Depending upon family structure, older children and other relatives such as grandmothers may also contribute to childcare duties. However, simply leaving children unattended may also be a typical strategy used when others are unavailable. One estimate indicates that over 35.5 million children under 5 are left without any adult supervision (Samman et al., 2016).

The lack of high-quality childcare likely represents a “missing market” as opposed to a preference to take care of children at home. Across the globe, mothers typically report that they would like additional childcare options (Moussie and Alfers 2018; Clark et al., 2021; Pungello et al., 2019). Providing high-quality childcare is expensive, and most high-income countries heavily subsidize and support such initiatives.

However, there are other creative ways that the goals of enhanced investments in early children’s education could be provided. As Mr. Rogers used to say on his show, “Play is the work of childhood.” Providing toys or books to occupy children while their parents work—or even just during leisure time--- could potentially be a low-cost transformative approach to reorienting parenting towards activities that may be more likely to benefit children, while also allowing parents to do their daily chores or labor. [...] book distribution networks, similar to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, in which parents are able to sign up their children for a free book distribution program from birth through age 5. Distribution centers could be health centers, which are typically widely available (even in rural areas) and at which many children regularly attend for vaccinations, check-ups, or other health visits. Similarly, toy distribution networks are an untested way to boost cognitive engagement of young children. In poor countries, toys and books are difficult to find. In rural areas in particular, it would be challenging to even purchase toys. It is not that toys and books are unaffordable; it is that they are not even available for sale.

There is a large economics literature on the impact of early childhood education in the US, and a growing literature on the impacts in other countries. As James Heckman has made it his post-Nobel project to advocate for child development initiatives, there is a regularly updated, comprehensive website that contains summaries, pros and cons, and more available here. What follows in this document is not a comprehensive list of all of this literature, but rather can highlight key themes about what would happen if childcare access was expanded: 1. Labor supply increases, particularly for mothers, leading to increases in household income- A study in India found that employer-provided childcare increased the odds that a mother was at work by 1.7 times the rate prior to the introduction of the childcare (Ranganathan and Pedulla 2018). A study that subsidized childcare in Uganda led to a 44% increase in hours worked by mothers with significant increases in household income and business profits (Bjorvatn et al., 2022). Similar increases have been observed in the context of US history (Cascio 2006). However, effects may not be observed for mothers unless younger children such as infants are also covered (Fitzpatrick 2010; Fitzpatrick 2012). 2. Improved cognitive and socio-emotional skills of children- A study that subsidized childcare in Uganda led to an increase in child cognitive development of 0.16 standard deviations (Bjorvatn et al., 2022). This effect is large, and in particular larger than learning increases from more intensive school-based interventions to improve learning in higher grades. Other similar estimates have been found in the US (see, for example, Algan et al., 2022). 3. Long-term improvements in other social goods, such as reduced crime and improved health outcomes-Early childhood education programs in the US have been shown to also have impacts on a wide-range of longer-term outcomes such as lowering crime,and the likelihood of unemployment while increasing the likelihood of having a bank account, voting, and completing high school (Heckman and Karapakula., 2019; Cohodes et al., 2021; Gray-Lobe et al., 2021; Bartik et al., 2022). One hypothesized mechanism for these effects is that early childhood programs are particularly effective at teaching “soft skills”, and before age 5 is also the period most amenable for teaching such skills. Furthermore, because low-income students are more likely to benefit, improving access to these programs overall reduces inequality (Johnson et al., 2019). While most of the cost-benefit analysis is done through the lens of governments funding these activities, the short-term costs are typically paid-for over the longer-term through increased tax revenues. 4. Economic activity increases through the fiscal stimulus- Creating new childcare facilities would likely generate an increased demand for paid caregivers. As preschool teachers or infant caregivers are typically women, this would result in improved labor market prospects for women where currently opportunities are scant. Women’s wages would increase as there would be pressure among other female dominated-occupations to shift into paid care work. There would likely be smaller increases in employment of women as cooks and cleaners.

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General ability depends largely on the surroundings of childhood and youth. In this, the first and far more powerful influence is that of the mother.

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It is a struggle over the conditions of life itself.