Chicago study highlights economic value of quality

A study from the University of Chicago finds that quality daycare can help break the poverty cycle: Low-income mothers with access to good programmes raise children who grow up to earn more money.

In other words, quality childcare, which includes educational activities and healthy meals, appears to better prepare children for school and the labour force.

“Supplying the support for low- income families will lead to a larger social return,” said co-author and economist Jorge Luis Garcia.

The University of Chicago study, led by James Heckman, a Nobel laureate economist, tracked children from birth until age 35. Heckman and his team focused on two fulltime programmes in North Carolina, which provided free care to low-income children, ages 8 weeks to 5 years.

The researchers followed a group of children who were born in the mid70s and received the care, which featured daily educational exercises, and a “control” group that either stayed at home or landed in cheaper or part-time programmes.

They found that mothers who had received the free, fulltime care made more money while their children were in preschool, and out-earned their peers 20 years later.

When they turned 30, meanwhile, they were out-earning their counterparts in the control group.

The programme disproportionately benefited boys, the researchers wrote, because boys who grow up economically disadvantaged are more likely to get suspended at school and land in the criminal justice system.

Lynette Fraga, executive director of Child Care Aware of America, a national organisation focused on the