Early Childhood
Introduction
The care and education of children under the age of 6 directly influence the labor market in three ways.
- Child care centers and preschools are employers whose labor-demand and employment practices influence labor market outcomes.
- Child care availability, quality, and costs affect parents’ participation in the labor market.
- Investments in preschool and early education have important labor market payoffs in the future, by affecting the “hard skills” and “soft skills” of former child participants.
Issues
- How can public policy be used to support high-quality child care?
- What are the primary means of providing child care and how do they affect the labor force participation of parents?
- What are the economic returns to high-quality preschool?
- What is the cost of providing universal high-quality preschool and how might it be financed?
- What are the economic returns to other types of early childhood programs, such as parent visitation and other parenting programs?
- How can the various economic returns to early childhood programs best be evaluated and measured?
- What features of early childhood programs improve quality in a cost-effective way?
Selected Institute Research
Distributional Effects of Early Childhood Programs and Business Incentives and Their Implications for Policy
Timothy Bartik, Upjohn Institute
Upjohn Institute Working Paper No. 09-151, July 2009
How Policymakers Should Deal with the Delayed Benefits of Early Childhood Programs
Timothy Bartik, Upjohn Institute
Upjohn Institute Working Paper No. 09-150, June 2009
By a Thread: How Child Care Centers Hold On to Teachers, How Teachers Build Lasting Careers
Marcy Whitebook, University of California-Berkeley
Laura Sakai, Research Consultant
Upjohn Institute Press, 2004
More Institute Research about Early Education
Useful Links
National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER)
Partnership for America’s Economic Success (PAES)