The effect of early childhood education and care services on the integration of refugee families

Abstract

Devising appropriate policy measures to integrate refugees is high on the agenda of many governments. This paper focuses on the integration of families seeking asylum in Germany between 2013 and 2016. Exploiting regional differences in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services and dispersal policies as exogenous sources of variation, as well as controlling for local level heterogeneity that could drive the results, we estimate the effect of ECEC attendance by refugee children on their parents’ integration. We find a significant positive effect, especially for the integration of mothers. The size of the estimate is substantial and is particularly strong for improved language proficiency and employment prospects.