Application Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment
Henning Hermes, Philipp Lergetporer, Frauke Peter, Simon Wiederhold
Journal of the European Economic Association,
forthcoming
Abstract
Why are children with lower socioeconomic status (SES) substantially less likely to be enrolled in child care? We study whether barriers in the application process work against lower-SES children — the group known to benefit strongest from child care enrollment. In an RCT in Germany with highly subsidized child care (N = 607), we offer treated families information and personal assistance for applications. We find substantial, equity-enhancing effects of the treatment, closing half of the large SES gap in child care enrollment. Increased enrollment for lower-SES families is likely driven by altered application knowledge and behavior. We discuss scalability of our intervention and derive policy implications for the design of universal child care programs.
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How Neighborhood Influences Shape College Choices and Academic Paths for Students: Insights from Croatia
Annika Backes, Dejan Kovač
Harvard Center for International Development,
2024
Abstract
Choosing a university and field of study is a key life decision that influences one’s lifelong earnings trajectory. Data shows that the share of individuals going to university is unequally distributed, and is lower among disadvantaged students. High-achieving students who are low income are less likely to opt for ambitious education paths, despite the high returns of education. Even among those students who decide to apply for college, the likelihood of whether they will apply to prestigious colleges or renowned study programs differs along the distribution of socioeconomic background. It does not only matter if you study, but also what and where you study, as there is a large variation in long-run outcomes, such as earnings, both between universities as well as between fields of study. Part of this mismatch can be attributed to unequal starting points for children, in terms of both institutional settings and the quality of information available within their close networks.
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Economic Outlook
Joint Economic Forecast Spring 2025 Geopolitical turn intensifies crisis – structural reforms even more urgent April 10, 2025 The German economy will continue to tread water in…
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Application Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment
Henning Hermes, Philipp Lergetporer, Frauke Peter, Simon Wiederhold
Abstract
Why are children with lower socioeconomic status (SES) substantially less likely to be enrolled in child care? We study whether barriers in the application process work against lower-SES children — the group known to benefit strongest from child care enrollment. In an RCT in Germany with highly subsidized child care (N = 607), we offer treated families information and personal assistance for applications. We find substantial, equity-enhancing effects of the treatment, closing half of the large SES gap in child care enrollment. Increased enrollment for lower-SES families is likely driven by altered application knowledge and behavior. We discuss scalability of our intervention and derive policy implications for the design of universal child care programs.
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Who Benefits from Place-based Policies? Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data
Philipp Grunau, Florian Hoffmann, Thomas Lemieux, Mirko Titze
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 11,
2024
Abstract
We study the wage and employment effects of a German place-based policy using a research design that exploits conditionally exogenous EU-wide rules governing the program parameters at the regional level. The place-based program subsidizes investments to create jobs with a subsidy rate that varies across labor market regions. The analysis uses matched data on the universe of establishments and their employees, establishment-level panel data on program participation, and regional scores that generate spatial discontinuities in program eligibility and generosity. These rich data enable us to study the incidence of the place-based program on different groups of individuals. We find that the program helps establishments create jobs that disproportionately benefit younger and less-educated workers. Funded establishments increase their wages but, unlike employment, wage gains do not persist in the long run. Employment effects estimated at the local area level are slightly larger than establishment-level estimates, suggesting limited spillover effects. Using subsidy rates as an instrumental variable for actual subsidies indicates that it costs approximately EUR 25,000 to create a new job in the economically disadvantaged areas targeted by the program.
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Alumni
IWH Alumni The IWH maintains contact with its former employees worldwide. We involve our alumni in our work and keep them informed, for example, with a newsletter. We also plan…
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Can Mentoring Alleviate Family Disadvantage in Adolescence? A Field Experiment to Improve Labor-Market Prospects
Sven Resnjanskij, Jens Ruhose, Simon Wiederhold, Ludger Woessmann, Katharina Wedel
Journal of Political Economy,
No. 3,
2024
Abstract
We study a mentoring program that aims to improve the labor-market prospects of school-attending adolescents from disadvantaged families by offering them a university-student mentor. Our RCT investigates program effectiveness on three outcome dimensions that are highly predictive of later labor-market success: math grades, patience/social skills, and labor-market orientation. For low-SES adolescents, the mentoring increases a combined index of the outcomes by over half a standard deviation after one year, with significant increases in each dimension. Part of the treatment effect is mediated by establishing mentors as attachment figures who provide guidance for the future. Effects on grades and labor-market orientation, but not on patience/social skills, persist three years after program start. By that time, the mentoring also improves early realizations of school-to-work transitions for low-SES adolescents. The mentoring is not effective for higher-SES adolescents. The results show that substituting lacking family support by other adults can help disadvantaged children at adolescent age.
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IWH Doctoral Programme in Economics
IWH Doctoral Programme in Economics The Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) offers doctoral positions in economics that lead to a PhD at a German university under the…
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East Germany
The Nasty Gap 30 years after unification: Why East Germany is still 20% poorer than the West Dossier In a nutshell The East German economic convergence process is hardly…
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Standards
Achieving Scientific Quality and Meeting Social Standards In order to secure the highest standards, the courses and the research projects will be evaluated. Evaluations form the…
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