IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nos/voprob/2012i1p200-228.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Benefits of Early Childhood Interventions Across the World: (Under) Investing in the Very Young

Author

Listed:
  • Milagros Nores
  • Steven W. Barnett

Abstract

Milagros Nores, Assistant Research Professor, National Institute for Early Education Research, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (NJ, United States). Email: mnores@nieer.org Address: 57 US Highway 1, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8554, United States.W. Steven Barnett, Board of Governors Professor and Director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (NJ, United States). Email: wbarnet@rci.rutgers.edu Address: 57 US Highway 1, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8554, United States.This paper uses a meta-analysis to review the evidence on the benefits of early childhood interventions. The authors also analyze how the revealed effects are correlated with characteristics of the corrective measures and with the target audience.A total of 38 contrasts of 30 interventions in 23 countries were analyzed. The paper focuses on studies applying a quasi-experimental or random assignment. Studies were coded according to: the type of intervention (cash transfer, nutritional, educational or mixed); sample size; study design and duration; country; target group (infants, prekindergarten); subpopulations of interventions; and dosage of intervention. Cohen's D effect sizes were calculated for four outcomes: cognitive gains; behavioral change; health gains; and amount of schooling.A moderate progress has been revealed in each of the outcomes. The benefits are sustained over time. Interventions that have an educational or mixed (educational and stimulation, or care) component evidenced the largest cognitive effects, as compared to cash infusions or nutrition-specific interventions. We find children from different context and countries receive substantial cognitive, behavioral, health and schooling benefits from early childhood interventions, unlike children whose development is not supported or promoted. Direct care and education appear to be the most efficient interventions, especially for development of cognitive skills in early childhood.DOI: 10.17323/1814-9545-2012-1-200-228

Suggested Citation

  • Milagros Nores & Steven W. Barnett, 2012. "Benefits of Early Childhood Interventions Across the World: (Under) Investing in the Very Young," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 1, pages 200-228.
    • Handle: RePEc:nos:voprob:2012:i:1:p:200-228
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Temple, Judy A. & Reynolds, Arthur J., 2007. "Benefits and costs of investments in preschool education: Evidence from the Child-Parent Centers and related programs," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 126-144, February.
    2. Jorge M. Aguero & Michael R. Carter & Ingrid Woolard, 2006. "The Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers on Nutrition: The South African Child Support Grant," SALDRU Working Papers 8, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    3. Patricia J. Lucas & Karen McIntosh & Mark Petticrew & Helen M. Roberts & Alan Shiell, 2008. "Financial Benefits for Child Health and Well‐Being in Low Income or Socially Disadvantaged Families in Developed World Countries," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(1), pages 1-93.
    4. Emiliana Vegas & Lucrecia Santibáñez, 2010. "The Promise of Early Childhood Development in Latin America and the Caribbean," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 9385.
    5. James J. Heckman & Dimitriy V. Masterov, 2007. "The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 29(3), pages 446-493.
    6. Barnett, W. Steven & Belfield, Clive R., 2006. "Early childhood development and social mobility," MPRA Paper 858, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Cunha, Flavio & Heckman, James J. & Lochner, Lance, 2006. "Interpreting the Evidence on Life Cycle Skill Formation," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 12, pages 697-812, Elsevier.
    8. W. Steven Barnett, 2005. "Maximizing returns from prekindergarten education," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 5-18.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. World Bank, 2013. "Republic of Uzbekistan : Improving Early Childhood Care and Education," World Bank Publications - Reports 15803, The World Bank Group.
    2. Kautz, Tim & Heckman, James J. & Diris, Ron & ter Weel, Bas & Borghans, Lex, 2014. "Fostering and Measuring Skills: Improving Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills to Promote Lifetime Success," IZA Discussion Papers 8696, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Helen Baker-Henningham y Florencia López Boo, 2014. "Intervenciones de estimulación infantil temprana en los países en vías de desarrollo: lo que funciona, por qué y para quién," Económica, Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, vol. 60, pages 120-186, January-D.
    4. Baker-Henningham, Helen & López Bóo, Florencia, 2010. "Early Childhood Stimulation Interventions in Developing Countries: A Comprehensive Literature Review," IZA Discussion Papers 5282, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    5. Lex Borghans & Angela Lee Duckworth & James J. Heckman & Bas ter Weel, 2008. "The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(4).
    6. Apps, Patricia & Mendolia, Silvia & Walker, Ian, 2013. "The impact of pre-school on adolescents’ outcomes: Evidence from a recent English cohort," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 183-199.
    7. World Bank, 2017. "Pre-Primary Education in Mongolia," World Bank Publications - Reports 26402, The World Bank Group.
    8. Bénédicte de la Brière & Deon Filmer & Dena Ringold & Dominic Rohner & Karelle Samuda & Anastasiya Denisova, 2017. "From Mines and Wells to Well-Built Minds," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 26490.
    9. Alessandra Casarico & Luca Micheletto & Alessandro Sommacal, 2015. "Intergenerational transmission of skills during childhood and optimal public policy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(2), pages 353-372, April.
    10. Heckman, James J. & Kautz, Tim, 2012. "Hard evidence on soft skills," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 451-464.
    11. Jung, Haeil & Hasan, Amer, 2014. "The impact of early childhood education on early achievement gaps : evidence from the Indonesia early childhood education and development (ECED) project," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6794, The World Bank.
    12. El-Kogali,Safaa El Tayeb & Krafft,Caroline Gould & Abdelkhalek,Touhami & Benkassmi,Mohamed & Chavez,Monica I. & Bassett,Lucy Katherine & Ejjanoui,Fouzia & El-Kogali,Safaa El Tayeb & Krafft,Caroline Go, 2016. "Inequality of opportunity in early childhood development in Morocco over time," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7670, The World Bank.
    13. Alessandra Casarico & Alessandro Sommacal, 2012. "Labor Income Taxation, Human Capital, and Growth: The Role of Childcare," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1182-1207, December.
    14. Heckman, James J. & Raut, Lakshmi K., 2016. "Intergenerational long-term effects of preschool-structural estimates from a discrete dynamic programming model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 191(1), pages 164-175.
    15. Hideo Akabayashi & Ryuichi Tanaka, 2013. "Long-Term Effects of Preschooling on Educational Attainments," Keio/Kyoto Joint Global COE Discussion Paper Series 2012-033, Keio/Kyoto Joint Global COE Program.
    16. Karen Macours & Norbert Schady & Renos Vakis, 2012. "Cash Transfers, Behavioral Changes, and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 247-273, April.
    17. Stefanie Behncke, 2012. "How Do Shocks to Non-Cognitive Skills Affect Test Scores?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 107-108, pages 155-173.
    18. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman, 2009. "The Economics and Psychology of Inequality and Human DEvelopment," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 320-364, 04-05.
    19. Kalb, Guyonne & van Ours, Jan C., 2014. "Reading to young children: A head-start in life?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-24.
    20. Gahramanov, Emin & Hasanov, Rashad & Tang, Xueli, 2020. "Parental involvement and Children's human capital: A tax-subsidy experiment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 16-29.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nos:voprob:2012:i:1:p:200-228. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marta Morozova (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://vo.hse.ru/en/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.