Access to Head Start and Maternal Labor Supply: Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidence
利用1990年代扩张和2002年随机实验数据，发现启蒙教育短期内提高了单身母亲的就业和工资收入，且未损害亲子互动质量，每美元投入带来0.93美元短期收益。
We explore how access to Head Start affects maternal labor supply. By relaxing childcare constraints, public preschools like Head Start might lead mothers to reallocate time among employment, childcare, and other activities. Using the 1990s enrollment and funding expansions and the 2002 Head Start Impact Study randomized controlled trial, we show that Head Start increases short-run employment and wage earnings of single mothers without reducing quality parent-child interactions. Even before including long-run benefits to children, the short-run benefit to single mothers and the government is $0.93 per dollar. Head Start is a family-level treatment with impacts beyond children.