Non cognitive skills and childcare attendance

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the impact of formal childcare attendance at ages 0–2 on children’s attitudes toward schooling and on social behavior at the end of the subjects’ first year of primary school and at the end of high school. We compare children who attended formal childcare with children who were looked after at home, but who otherwise shared similar characteristics, both in terms of family characteristics and in terms of the probability of having access to formal childcare in Italy, where the service is rationed. We find that having attended formal childcare significantly improves school readiness and social behavior in elementary school but that this impact disappears in high school. The effects are larger for boys and for children of mothers with lower educational attainment and of fathers in low-level occupations.