Early childhood development and social mobility

Future of Children

Volumn 16, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 73-98

  Barnett, W Steven ^a   Belfield, Clive R ^b  

^a The State University of New Jersey   (United States)

^b CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT; AFRICAN AMERICAN; APTITUDE; ASIAN; CHILD CARE; CHILD DEVELOPMENT; CHILD WELFARE; CHILDHOOD; COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT; ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; EDUCATION; FAMILY RELATION; FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT; HEALTH CARE POLICY; HISPANIC; HUMAN; INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT; KINDERGARTEN; LEARNING; PARENTING EDUCATION; REVIEW; SCHOOL; SELF ESTEEM; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CLASS; SOCIOECONOMICS; SPECIAL EDUCATION; TEACHING; UNITED STATES;

CHILD DEVELOPMENT; CHILD, PRESCHOOL; FAMILY; HUMANS; INFANT; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL MOBILITY; UNITED STATES;

EID: 33748932521     PISSN: 10548289     EISSN: 15501558     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/foc.2006.0011     Document Type: Review

References (123)

1. See Jack Shonkoff and Deborah Phillips, From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development (Washington: National Academy Press, 2000);
2. Donald Rock and A. Jackson Stenner, "Assessment Issues in the Testing of Children at School Entry," Future of Children 15, no. 1 (2005): 15-34.
3. Administration for Children and Families, "Head Start Program Fact Sheet: Fiscal Year 2006" (2006), www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/hsb/research/ 2006.htm (accessed April 13, 2006).
4. Parents as Teachers, "2003-04 Parents as Teachers Born to Learn Annual Program Report Summary" (2004), www.parentsasteachers.org/atf/cf/ %7B00812ECA-A71B-4C2C-8FF3-8F16A5742EEA%7D/PAT%20NEWS%20FINAL%20VERSION%20- %20National%20Annual%20Program%20Report%20Summary.pdf (accessed April 13, 2006).
5. W. Steven Barnett and Donald J. Yarosz, "Who Goes to Preschool and Why Does It Matter?" Preschool Policy Matters 7 (New Brunswick, N.J.: National Institute for Early Education Research, 2004).
6. Debra J. Ackerman, W. Steven Barnett, and Kenneth Robin, "Making the Most of Kindergarten: Present Trends and Future Issues in the Provision of Full-Day Programs," NIEER Policy Report (March 2005), http://nieer.org/ docs/index.php?DocID=118 (accessed April 13, 2006).
7. John Wirt and others, The Condition of Education 2004: 111 (U.S. Department of Education, 2004).
8. Jill Walston and Jerry West, Full-Day and Half-Day Kindergarten in the United States: Findings from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (Washington: National Center for Education Statistics, 2004), p. 73. There are some surprising differences between this study and the Current Population Survey in estimates of full-day kindergarten attendance by ethnicity and other background characteristics of the children.
9. We analyzed data from the 2001 National Household Education Survey for reported Head Start attendance by income. Although there appears to be substantial error in reported Head Start participation, those whose participation can be verified do not significantly differ in income from those whose participation cannot be verified. Mary Hagedorn and others, National Household Education Surveys Program of 2001: Data Files and Electronic Codebook, NCES 2003078 (U.S. Department of Education, 2003).
10. W. Steven Barnett, Kirsty Brown, and Rima Shore, "The Universal vs. Targeted Debate: Should the United States Have Preschool for All?" Preschool Policy Matters 6 (New Brunswick, N.J.: National Institute for Early Education Research, 2003).
11. W. Steven Barnett and others, The State of Preschool: 2005 State Preschool Yearbook (New Brunswick, N.J.: NIEER, 2006).
12. W. Steven Barnett and others, The State of Preschool: 2005 State Preschool Yearbook (2006). Ibid.
13. Administration for Children and Families, "FFY 2004 CCDF Data Tables and Charts (Preliminary Estimates)" (2005), www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ccb/ research/04acf800/list.htm (accessed April 13, 2006).
14. Barnett and Yarosz, "Who Goes to Preschool?" (see note 4);
15. Barnett and others, The State of Preschool (see note 10).
16. Hagedorn and others, National Household Education Surveys Program of 2001 (see note 8).
17. Barnett and Yarosz, "Who Goes to Preschool?" (see note 4).
18. Barnett and Yarosz, "Who Goes to Preschool?" Ibid.
19. Ruth McKey and others, The Impact of Head Start on Children, Families, and Communities (Washington: Head Start Evaluation Synthesis and Utilization Project, 1985);
20. Craig Ramey, Donna Bryant, and Tanya Suarez, "Preschool Compensatory Education and the Modifiability of Intelligence: A Critical Review," in Current Topics in Human Intelligence, edited by Douglas Detterman (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1985), pp. 247-96;
21. Michael Guralnick and Forrest C. Bennett, The Effectiveness of Early Intervention for At-Risk and Handicapped Children (New York: Academy Press, 1987);
22. Michael Guralnick, "Second Generation Research on the Effectiveness of Early Intervention," Early Education and Development 4, no. 4 (1993): 366-78;
23. Jack Shonkoff and Samuel Meisels, Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
24. Deanna Gomby, Patti Culross, and Richard Behrman, "Home Visiting: Recent Program Evaluations - Analysis and Recommendations," Future of Children 9, no.1 (1999): 4-26.
25. Amy Baker, Chaya Piotrkowski, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, "The Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY)," Future of Children 9, no. 1 (1999): 116-33;
26. Gloria Boutte, "The Effects of Home Intervention on Rural Children's Home Environments, Academic Self-Esteem, and Achievement Scores" (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Dissertation Services, 1992);
27. Mary Wagner and Serena Clayton, "The Parents as Teachers Program: Results from Two Demonstrations," Future of Children 9, no. 1 (1999): 91-116;
28. Sandra Scarr and Kathleen McCartney, "Far from Home: An Experimental Evaluation of the Mother-Child Home Program in Bermuda," Child Development 59 (1988): 531-43;
29. Christine Powell and Sandra Grantham-McGregor, "Home Visiting of Varying Frequency and Child Development," Pediatrics 84 (1989): 157-64.
30. Robert St. Pierre and Jean Layzer, "Using Home Visits for Multiple Purposes: The Comprehensive Child Development Program," Future of Children 9, no.1 (1989): 134-51.
31. Glenn Casto and Anne Lewis, "Parent Involvement in Infant and Preschool Programs," Journal of the Division of Early Childhood 9 (1984): 49-56;
32. Donna Bryant and Craig Ramey, "Prevention-Oriented Infant Education Programs," Journal of Children in Contemporary Society 7 (1987): 17-35.
33. Robert St. Pierre, Jean Layzer, and Helen Barnes, "Regenerating Two-Generation Programs," in Early Care and Education for Children in Poverty: Promises, Programs, and Long-Term Results, edited by W. Steven Barnett and Sarane Boocock (SUNY Press, 1998), pp. 99-121.
34. David Olds and others, "Prenatal and Infancy Home Visitation by Nurses: Recent Findings," Future of Children 9, no.1 (1999): 44-66.
35. Deanna Gomby, Home Visitation in 2005: Outcomes for Children and Parents (Washington: Committee for Economic Development, 2005), www.ced.org/projects/ kids.shtml (accessed February 12, 2006).
36. David Olds and others, "Effects of Nurse Home-Visiting on Maternal Life Course and Child Development: Age 6 Follow-Up Results of a Randomized Trial," Pediatrics 114 (2004): 1550-59.
37. Sandra Scarr, Marlene Eisenberg, and Kirby Deater-Deckard, "Measurements of Quality in Child Care Centers," Early Childhood Research Quarterly 9, no 2 (1994): 131-52;
38. Sandra Hofferth, "Child Care in the First Three Years of Life and Preschoolers' Language and Behavior," paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Albuquerque, N.M., April 1989;
39. Katherine Magnuson, Chris Ruhm, and Jane Waldfogel, "Does Prekindergarten Improve School Preparation and Performance?" Economics of Education Review (2006, forthcoming);
40. NICHD Early Child Care Research Network and Greg Duncan, "Modeling the Impacts of Child Care Quality on Children's Preschool Cognitive Development," Child Development 74, no. 5 (2003): 1454-75.
41. Bengt-Erik Andersson, "Effects of Public Day Care - A Longitudinal Study," Child Development 60 (1989): 857-66;
42. Tiffany Field, "Quality Infant Day Care and Grade School Behavior and Performance," Child Development 62 (1991): 863-70.
43. Sonalde Desai, P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, and Robert Michael, "Mother or Market? Effects of Maternal Employment on the Intellectual Ability of Four-Year-Old Children," Demography 26 (1989): 545-61;
44. Nazli Baydar and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, "Effects of Maternal Employment and Child-Care Arrangements on Preschoolers' Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes: Evidence from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," Developmental Psychology 27 (1991): 932-45.
45. NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, "Early Child Care and Children's Development Prior to School Entry" and "Further Explorations of the Detected Effects of Quantity of Early Child Care on Socioemotional Development," both papers presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minneapolis, Minn., April 2001.
46. Eliana Garces, Duncan Thomas, and Janet Currie, "Longer-Term Effects of Head Start," American Economic Review 92 (2002): 999-1012.
47. John Love and others, Early Head Start Research-Building Their Futures: How Early Head Start Programs Are Enhancing the Lives of Infants and Toddlers in Low-Income Families (Princeton, N.J.: Mathematica Policy Research, 2001).
48. William Gormley and others, "The Effects of Universal Pre-K on Cognitive Development," Developmental Psychology 41, no. 6 (2005): 533-58.
49. W. Steven Barnett, Cynthia Lamy, and Kwanghee Jung, "The Effects of State Prekindergarten Programs on Young Children's School Readiness in Five States," http://nieer.org/docs/index.php?DocID=129 (accessed February 13, 2006).
50. Studies relying on the ECLS-K, however, should be viewed cautiously as researchers must infer program types from parents' descriptions ("prekindergarten" may include some ordinary child care) and have limited means for adjusting for the reasons why parents select programs. The ECLS-K data also suffer from attrition of test score information over time.
51. Frances Campbell and others, "The Development of Cognitive and Academic Abilities: Growth Curves from an Early Childhood Educational Experiment," Developmental Psychology 37, no. 2 (2001): 231-42;
52. Larry Schweinhart and others, Lifetime Effects: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study through Age 40, Monographs of the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation 14 (Ypsilanti, Mich.: High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, 2005).
53. In studies from before 1985, the estimates might be somewhat larger because the control group had little access to alternative services. But even in the Abecedarian study by Barnett and Masse (see note 49), the control group had considerable access to center-based child care, so that change in control group experience is unlikely to have much influence on comparisons to more recent studies.
54. W. S. Barnett, "Early Childhood Education," in School Reform Proposals: The Research Evidence, edited by Alex Molnar (Greenwich, Conn.: Information Age Publishing, 2002), pp. 1-26.
55. Jean Larsen and Clyde Robinson, "Later Effects of Preschool on Low-Risk Children," Early Childhood Research Quarterly 4 (1989): 133-44.
56. Ramey, Bryant, and Suarez, "Preschool Compensatory Education" (see note 17);
57. Martin Woodhead, "When Psychology Informs Public Policy: The Case of Early Childhood Intervention," American Psychologist 43 (1988): 443-54;
58. Ron Haskins, "Beyond Metaphor: The Efficacy of Early Childhood Education," American Psychologist 44 (1989): 274-82;
59. Charles Locurto, "Beyond IQ in Preschool Programs?" Intelligence 15 (1991): 295-312;
60. Herman Spitz, "Commentary on Locurto's 'Beyond IQ in Preschool Programs?'" Intelligence 15 (1991): 327-33.
61. Frances Campbell and Craig Ramey, "Cognitive and School Outcomes for High-Risk African American Students at Middle Adolescence: Positive Effects at Early Intervention," American Educational Research Journal 32 (1995): 743-72;
62. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Jane Waldfogel, and Wen-Jui Han, "Maternal Employment and Child Outcomes in the First Three Years of Life: The NICHD Study of Early Childcare," Child Development 73 (2002): 1052-72.
63. W. Steven Barnett, "Long-Term Effects on Cognitive Development and School Success," in Early Care and Education for Children in Poverty: Promises, Programs, and Long-Term Outcomes, edited by W. Steven Barnett and Sarane Boocock (SUNY Press, 1998), pp. 11-44;
64. Janet Currie, "Early Childhood Programs," Journal of Economic Perspectives 15 (2001): 213-38.
65. Anne McGill-Franzen and Richard Allington, "Flunk 'em or Get Them Classified: The Contamination of Primary Grade Accountability Data," Educational Researcher 22, no. 1 (1993): 19-22.
66. W. Steven Barnett and Greg Camilli, "Compensatory Preschool Education, Cognitive Development, and 'Race,' " in Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth, edited by Jeff Fish (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002), pp. 368-406.
67. W. Steven Barnett, John Young, and Larry Schweinhart, "How Preschool Education Influences Long-Term Cognitive Development and School Success," in Early Care and Education for Children in Poverty, edited by W. Steven Barnett and Sarane Boocock (SUNY Press, 1998).
68. W. Steven Barnett, "Preschool Education for Economically Disadvantaged Children: Effects on Reading Achievement and Related Outcomes," in Handbook of Early Literacy Research, edited by Susan Neuman and David Dickinson (New York: Guilford Press, 2001), pp. 421-43.
69. W. Steven Barnett, "Long-Term Effects of Early Childhood Programs on Cognitive and School Outcomes," Future of Children 5, no. 3 (1995): 25-50;
70. Hiro Yoshikawa, "Prevention as Cumulative Protection: Effects of Early Family Support and Education on Chronic Delinquency and Its Risks," Psychological Bulletin 115 (1994): 27-54.
71. Arthur Reynolds and others, "Long-Term Effects of an Early Childhood Intervention on Educational Achievement and Juvenile Arrest: A 15-year Follow-Up of Low-Income Children in Public Schools," Journal of the American Medical Association 285 (2001): 2339-46;
72. Dale Johnson and Todd Walker, "A Follow-Up Evaluation of the Houston Parent-Child Development Center: School Performance," Journal of Early Intervention 15, no. 3 (1991): 226-36;
73. Clive Belfield and others, "Cost-Benefit Analysis of the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program Using Age 40 Follow-Up Data," Journal of Human Resources 41 (2006): 162-91.
74. Victoria Seitz and Nancy Apfel, "Parent-Focused Intervention: Diffusion Effects on Siblings," Child Development 56 (1994): 376-91.
75. W. Steven Barnett and Leonard Masse, "Comparative Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Abecedarian Program and Its Policy Implications," Economics of Education Review (2006, in press).
76. Garces, Thomas, and Currie, "Longer-Term Effects of Head Start" (see note 30).
77. Richard Murnane and Barbara Phillips, "What Do Effective Teachers of Inner-City Children Have in Common?" Social Science Research 10 (1981): 83-100;
78. Ronald Ferguson, "Can Schools Narrow the Black-White Test Score Gap?" in The Black-White Test Score Gap, edited by Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips (Brookings, 1998), pp. 318-74;
79. Alison Clarke-Stewart, Christian Gruber, and Linda Fitzgerald, Children at Home and in Day Care (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994);
80. Carollee Howes and Michael Olenick, "Child Care and Family Influences on Toddlers' Compliance," Child Development 57 (1986): 202-16;
81. Marcy Whitebook, Deborah Phillips, and Carollee Howes, National Child Care Staffing Study Revisited: Four Years in the Life of Center-Based Child Care (Oakland, Calif.: Child Care Employee Project, 1993);
82. Carollee Howes, "Children's Experiences in Center-Based Child Care as a Function of Teacher Background and Adult-Child Ratio," Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 43, no. 3 (1997): 404-25;
83. Leslie Phillipsen and others, "The Prediction of Process Quality from Structural Features of Child Care," Early Childhood Research Quarterly 12 (1997): 281-304;
84. Barbara Bowman, M. Suzanne Donovan, and Susan Burns, eds., Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers (Washington: National Academy Press, 2001).
85. Harry McGurk and others, Staff-Child Ratios in Care and Education Services for Young Children (London: HMSO, 1995);
86. Jean Layzer, Barbara Goodson, and Marc Moss, Life in Preschool - Volume One of an Observational Study of Early Childhood Programs for Disadvantaged Four-Year-Olds: Final Report (Cambridge, Mass.: Abt Associates, 1993);
87. Susan Kontos, Carollee Howes, and Ellen Galinsky, "Does Training Make a Difference to Quality in Family Child Care?" Early Childhood Research Quarterly 12 (1997): 351-72;
88. Ann Smith, "Quality Child Care and Joint Attention," International Journal of Early Years Education 7, no. 1 (1999): 85-98;
89. Charles Achilles, Patrick Harman, and Paula Egelson, "Using Research Results on Class Size to Improve Pupil Achievement Outcomes," Research in the Schools 2, no. 2 (1995): 23-30;
90. Harold Wenglinsky, "How Money Matters: The Effect of School District Spending on Academic Achievement," Sociology of Education 70, no. 3 (1997): 377-99;
91. Fred Mosteller, "The Tennessee Study of Class Size in the Early School Grades," Future of Children 5, no. 2 (1995): 113-27;
92. Jeremy Finn, Susan Gerber, and Jayne Boyd-Zaharias, "Small Classes in the Early Grades, Academic Achievement and Graduating from High School," Journal of Educational Psychology 97, no. 2 (2005): 214-23;
93. Ellen Frede, "Preschool Program Quality for Children in Poverty," in Early Care and Education for Children in Poverty: Promises, Programs, and Long-Term Outcomes, edited by W. Steven Barnett and Sarane Boocock (SUNY Press, 1998), pp. 77-98.
94. See Stacey Dale and Alan Krueger, "Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables," Quarterly Journal of Economics 98 (2002): 1491-527.
95. Magnuson and Waldfogel simulate the effects on achievement from expanding early childhood education programs to clarify how wider access or upgraded preschooling can redress inequities. Expanding enrollment of black and Hispanic children to 80 percent (that is, one-third higher than the rate for white children) would close the initial gap by 4-20 percent (12-52 percent) for black (Hispanic) children. Expanding enrollments to cover all children below the poverty line would reduce the black-white (Hispanic-white) gap by at most 12 percent (16 percent). In additional simulations, upgrading all types of preschooling has no effect on gaps across ethnic groups; improving the quality of Head Start reduces racial gaps by at most 10 percent (8 percent) for black (Hispanic) children. Katherine Magnuson and Jane Waldfogel, "Early Childhood Education: Effects on Ethnic and Racial Gaps in School Readiness," Future of Children 15, no. 1 (2005): 169-96.
96. Long-term health effects may be significant. Single motherhood is associated with higher rates of physical abuse and child neglect, and parental income has a strong impact on child health. See Christina Paxson and Jane Waldfogel, "Parental Resources and Child Abuse and Neglect," American Economic Review 89 (1999): 239-44;
97. Anne Case, Darren Lubotsky, and Christina Paxson, "Economic Status and Health in Childhood: The Origins of the Gradient," American Economic Review 92 (2003): 1308-34.
98. Peter Gottschalk, "Is the Correlation in Welfare Participation across Generations Spurious?" Journal of Public Economics 63 (2003): 1-25;
99. David Green and William Warburton, "Tightening a Welfare System: The Effects of Benefit Denial on Future Welfare Receipt," Journal of Public Economics 88 (2004): 1471-93. But the correlation may be muted, as the extent of welfare receipt scarring is debatable: scarring effects appear weak, and welfare payments are increasingly becoming time limited (most new EITC claimant families lose eligibility within two years).
100. Chris Lackey, "Violent Family Heritage, the Transition to Adulthood, and Later Partner Violence," Journal of Family Issues 24 (2003): 74-98.
101. Sandra Stith and others, "The Intergenerational Transmission of Spouse Abuse: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of Marriage and the Family 62 (2000): 640-54;
102. Jenny Williams and Robin Sickles, "An Analysis of the Crime as Work Model: Evidence from the 1958 Philadelphia Birth Cohort Study," Journal of Human Resources 37 (2002): 479-509.
103. Rebecca Maynard, "The Costs of Adolescent Childbearing," in Kids Having Kids: Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Teen Pregnancy, edited by Rebecca Maynard (Washington: Urban Institute Press, 1996).
104. Preschooling does not have a strong effect on "steady-state" family size. It delays or reduces childbearing, by raising the opportunity cost of time spent on child care and lowering the probability of unplanned parenthood; but it raises childbearing, because of its association with higher incomes. Typically, the opportunity cost and planning effects are slightly greater than the income effect.
105. Terrie Moffitt, "Adolescence-Limited and Life-Course-Persistent Antisocial Behavior - A Developmental Taxonomy," Psychological Review 100 (1993): 674-701;
106. Casey Mulligan, "Galton versus the Human Capital Approach to Inheritance," Journal of Political Economy 107 (1999): S184-224.
107. They also adversely influence children's test scores: being born to a teen mother reduces children's test scores at age six by 0.07 effect sizes; independently, a two-parent family is associated with test scores that are 0.1 effect size higher. See Roland Fryer and Steven Levitt, "Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School," Review of Economics and Statistics 86 (2004): 447-64.
108. Robert Haveman, Barbara Wolfe, and Elaine Peterson, "Children of Early Childbearers as Young Adults," in Kids Having Kids: Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Teen Pregnancy, edited by Rebecca Maynard (Washington: Urban Institute Press, 1996);
109. Christian Belzil and Jorgen Hansen, "Structural Estimates of the Intergenerational Education Correlation," Journal of Applied Econometrics 18 (2003): 679-96.
110. Heather Antecol and Kelly Bedard, "Does Single Parenthood Increase the Probability of Teenage Promiscuity, Substance Abuse, and Crime?" Working Paper, University of California, http://econ.ucsb.edu/~kelly/youth.pdf;
111. Cesar Rebellon, "Reconsidering the Broken Homes/Delinquency Relationship and Exploring Its Mediating Mechanism(s)," Criminology 40 (2002): 103-35;
112. Jennifer Hunt, "Teen Births Keep American Crime High," Working Paper 9632 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2003).
113. Based on sixteen studies of intergenerational earnings correlations, an increase in parental income of $1,000 raises offspring income by approximately $340. See Mulligan, "Galton versus the Human Capital Approach" (see note 60). The intergenerational earnings elasticity between fathers and sons is 0.4; that is, if the father's earnings are 10 percent above the average for his generation, his son's earnings will be 4 percent higher than the average for his own generation.
114. See Gary Solon, "Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States," in Handbook of Labor Economics, vol. 3A, edited by Orley Ashenfelter and David Card (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1999).
115. Robert Haveman and Barbara Wolfe, "The Determinants of Children's Attainment: A Review of Methods and Findings," Journal of Economic Literature 33 (1995): 1829-77.
116. See Mulligan, "Galton versus the Human Capital Approach" (see note 60).
117. Income effects on offspring attainment are similarly strong; and a two-parent family is associated with higher attainment by 0.43 years; Belzil and Hansen, "Structural Estimates" (see note 62).
118. Perry Preschool program participants had an average of 2.4 children by age forty-two. There are data on whether the first or second child has ever been arrested, repeated a grade, or been on welfare, and if the child is currently employed. There is no clear evidence of offspring advantages across these dimensions. However, sample sizes are very small.
119. Diego Restuccia and Carlos Urrutia, "Intergenerational Persistence of Earnings: The Role of Early and College Education," American Economic Review 94 (2004): 1354-78.
120. This result accords with other research that finds investments in youth to be less efficient than investments in young children. See Steve Cameron and James Heckman, "The Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Black, Hispanic, and White Males," Journal of Political Economy 109 (2001): 455-99. Our primary focus is on the efficacy of early investments per se, rather than on their efficacy relative to other interventions.
121. Families will have to invest resources, even if the program is publicly provided. Even with zero fees, some families do not enroll, so presumably the costs and inconvenience of enrollment must outweigh the benefits. It is possible that there is an informational problem: families do not appreciate the benefits of preschooling. However, the more likely explanation is that pre-K is not convenient for many families or that even relatively small direct expenses (such as transportation) are too much.
122. Janet Currie and Matthew Neidell, "Getting Inside the 'Black Box' of Head Start Quality: What Matters and What Doesn't," Economics of Education Review (2006, forthcoming).
123. W. Steven Barnett, "Maximizing Returns from Prekindergarten Education," Education and Economic Development, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (November 2004), www.clevelandfed.org/Research/Ed-Conf2004/Nov/ PapersPresntns.cfm.