Suchergebnisse

AbstractAlthough an increasing body of research promotes the development of universal early education and care programs, little is known about the extent to which these programs affect gender gaps in academic achievement and other developmental outcomes. Analyzing the introduction of universal highly‐subsidized child care in Quebec, we first demonstrate that there are no statistically significant gender differences in the average effect of access to universal child care on child outcomes. However, we find substantial heterogeneity in policy impacts on the variance of developmental and behavioural scores across genders. Additionally, our analysis reveals significant evidence of differential parenting practices by gender in response to the introduction of the policy. The analysis is suggestive that the availability of subsidized child care changed home environments disproportionately and may be responsible for the growing gender gaps in behavioural outcomes observed after child care is subsidized.RésuméEst‐ce que la politique de garderies subventionnées du Québec donne aux garçons et aux filles un avantage de départ égal? Même si un corpus de recherches croissant promeut le développement de programmes universels de garderies et d'éducation préscolaire, on connaît peu de choses sur la nature de l'impact de ces programmes sur les écarts dans la réussite académique et dans les résultats comportementaux entre genres. Analysant l'introduction du programme universel fortement subventionné de garderies au Québec, on montre qu'il n'y a pas de différences statistiquement significatives entre genres dans l'effet moyen de l'accès au programme universel d'éducation préscolaire sur les résultats pour l'enfant. Cependant, on découvre une hétérogénéité substantielle entre genres dans les impacts de la politique sur la variance des scores pour ce qui est du développement et du comportement. De plus, l'analyse révèle des résultats significatifs en termes de pratiques parentales différenciées entre genres en réponse à l'introduction de la politique. L'analyse suggère que la disponibilité de l'éducation préscolaire subventionnée modifie de façon disproportionnée l'environnement à la maison, et peut être responsable pour l'écart croissant entre genres dans les résultats comportementaux observés après l'introduction de l'éducation préscolaire subventionnée.

In Canada, advocates of universal child-care often point to policies implemented in Quebec as providing a model for early education and care policies in other provinces. While these policies have proven to be highly popular among citizens, initial evaluations of access to these programs indicated they led to a multitude of undesirable child developmental, health, and family outcomes. These research findings ignited substantial controversy and criticism. In this study, we show the robustness of the initial analyses to 1) concerns over whether negative outcomes would vanish over time as suppliers gained experience providing child-care; 2)concerns regarding multiple testing; and 3) concerns that the original estimates measured the causal impact of child-care availability and not child-care attendance. A notable exception is that despite estimated effects stemming from the policy indicating declines in motor-social development scores in Quebec relative to the rest of Canada, our analyses imply that on average attending child-care in Canada leads to a significant increase in this test score. However, our analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity in program impacts that occur in response to the Quebec policies and indicates that most of the negative impacts reported in earlier research are driven by children from families who only attended child-care in response to the implementation of this policy.