Access to Birth-to-5 Child and Family Policies and Their Impact Beyond the Average

Viragh, Timea Henriett

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-vwwq-aw87

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Access to Birth-to-5 Child and Family Policies and Their Impact Beyond the Average

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Policies supporting families with young children provide an important context for human development. The two primary public policies available to caregivers around and after childbirth are parental leave and early care and education (ECE). A substantial body of research evaluates the effects of parental leave and ECE policies on various outcomes, but most existing studies focus on average treatment effects in the population. We know much less about how policy effects vary by family demographics or by child care program characteristics. The three studies in this dissertation aim to increase our understanding about the circumstances under which child and family policies are more or less effective in supporting families with young children. Study 1 documents maternal wage dynamics around childbirth and their heterogeneity by education using German administrative data. Women with low education experience a smaller drop and a faster recovery of their wages than women with higher levels of education. These differences are largely explained by the fact that women with low education have their first child at a younger age. To investigate whether public policies can influence these wage dynamics, I exploit a paid family leave policy change in 2007 to set up a differences-in-regression-discontinuities design. The policy change shortened the duration of monthly benefit receipt, increased the amount of monthly transfers, and encouraged secondary caregivers to spend at least two months on leave. I find suggestive evidence that the policy did not have an effect on wage loss after childbirth for women with high education. Women with low education earn a larger share of their pre-birth wage in the second year after childbirth under the new policy regime. This is most likely because they return to work faster. My results suggest that the policy change only influenced labor market behavior of mothers with economic constraints. Study 2 provides novel insights into ECE access by using a new indicator: distance traveled for child care. It documents trends in how far families travel to access care in the United States by neighborhood income using geographic mobility data for 2019 for n = 106,916 child care programs. The findings indicate that distance traveled follows an inverted U-shaped pattern. Families who live in the lowest and highest income neighborhoods tend to travel less for child care than families in the middle of the income distribution. In a case study examining the state of Illinois, the pattern is consistent with the physical availability of child care. Findings are discussed in terms of how distance traveled as an indicator can help define the child care market and its implications for early childhood policy. Study 3 focuses on the effect of ECE on parental outcomes. In this paper, coauthored with Professor Terri Sabol, we use family stress theory to argue that the financial and logistical burden of paying for and managing child care arrangements can act as repeated stressors in families’ lives, and may negatively influence parental mental well-being. We examine whether the provision of free and high-quality early care alleviates these stressors and leads to better parental health and well-being. We use data from the Head Start Impact Study, a nationally representative randomized controlled trial from the early 2000s, to answer the research question. Next to documenting the average effect of offering Head Start on parental well-being, we also explore heterogeneity in these effects by program characteristics, including family-centered services and supports in a program. The three studies in this dissertation inform our understanding of how birth-to-5 child and family policies influence lives of families with young children within two different national contexts, Germany (with high public funding) and the United States (with lower public funding). Moving beyond documenting average effects, they showcase how policy impacts vary by family demographics and child care center characteristics. These insights contribute to policy design and could help researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to work together to build policies that better support families with young children.

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