Early Childcare and Cognitive Development: Evidence from an Assignment Lottery
利用挪威儿童保育分配抽签，研究发现1-2岁入园对6-7岁语言和数学成绩有显著提升，并大幅降低低分比例，对弱势群体效果更强。
Young children are thought to be vulnerable to separation from their primary caregiver. This raises concern about whether early childcare enrollment may harm child development. We use childcare assignment lotteries to estimate the effect of enrollment at age 1–2 on cognitive development in Norway. Estimates show significant gains in language and mathematics at age 6–7 and a substantial drop in scores below publicly set thresholds for low performance. Across subsamples, we find a pattern of stronger effects on underperforming groups. We find little support for childcare quality or family income as drivers of our results.