Adult Outcomes of Sustained Early Childcare and Education: A Pathway Out of Poverty

• In Event: What Works Best and For Whom: Treatment Heterogeneity in Long-Term Effects of Early-Care and Education

Abstract

Experimental studies have demonstrated that sustained high-quality early childcare and education (ECE) can reduce the consequences of poverty, improving life outcomes into adulthood. However, the long-term impacts of community-based ECE settings remain unknown. Using data from 994 US-born children, we examined differential impacts of sustained participation in ECE on low- and high-income children’s academic achievement at age 15 and two important indicators of adult development at age 26, college graduation and annual salary. In doing so, we examined whether quality of sustained ECE moderated estimated impacts. The data were collected as part of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), an economically diverse sample of children who attended a range of community-based ECE settings.
The effects of high-quality ECE, family income, and the interaction thereof were estimated using linear regression models for quantitative outcomes (academic achievement at age 15 and salary at age 26), and linear probability models for the dichotomous outcome (obtaining a college degree). Full information likelihood maximization was used to account for attrition, and standard errors were adjusted for nesting within SECCYD sites. All models were estimated with a robust set of 18 child, parent, and family covariates as well as controls for study site. For age 26 salary, we also controlled for whether participants were attending school.
A summary of coefficients and standard errors from regression models is provided in Table 3; in Figure 3, we graphed significant interactions, providing point estimates for low- and high-income children who participated in: (a) no episodes of ECE during the first five years of life, (b) sustained ECE that was exclusively low-quality (i.e., 3 episodes of low-quality care and 0 episodes high-quality care), (c) sustained ECE that was primarily low-quality (i.e., 2 episodes of low-quality care and 1 episode high-quality care), (d) sustained ECE that was primarily high-quality (i.e., 2 episodes of high-quality care and 1 episode low-quality care), and (e) sustained ECE that was exclusively high-quality (i.e., 3 episodes of high-quality care and 0 episodes low-quality care).
Among children who never attended ECE, there were long-term disparities favoring high-income children, particularly for likelihood of graduating college and annual salary at age 26; at age 26, those from low-income households who had zero episodes of ECE were nearly 20-percentage points less likely to graduate from either a 2-year or 4-year college degree and had salaries that were nearly $20,000 lower than children who grew up in high-income households and never attended ECE. Yet, the age 26 outcomes for children from low-income families who attended sustained ECE were much more similar to those from high-income families, particularly in the case of sustained high-quality ECE; the gap in college graduation rate was reduced by 8 percentage points and the salary gap by nearly $10,000 for low-income children who were in three episodes of exclusively high-quality ECE.
Our results extend evidence on the long-term impacts of ECE, indicating that sustained ECE, especially when it is of high-quality, may mitigate deleterious effects of poverty with lasting benefits into adulthood.

Authors

• Andres Sebastian Bustamante, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author

• Eric Dearing, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Henrik D. Zachrisson, University of Oslo
  Non-Presenting Author

• Deborah Lowe Vandell, University of California - Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author