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Full-Text Articles in Education Economics

Close To Home? Five Key Facts About Child Care Customer And Worker Commutes, Gabrielle Pepin, Jonathan Borowsky, Elizabeth E. Davis, Aaron Sojourner Jun 2026

Close To Home? Five Key Facts About Child Care Customer And Worker Commutes, Gabrielle Pepin, Jonathan Borowsky, Elizabeth E. Davis, Aaron Sojourner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Parents often cite location and convenience as important factors in choosing a child care provider. We use data on individual mobility from GPS in cell phones to study commutes to each licensed early childhood care and education (ECE) provider in 14 states separately for center customers, center workers, and customers of home-based child care providers. We document five key facts about ECE customer and worker commutes. One, center customers and workers commute farther than home-based customers to ECE providers. Two, substantial shares of customers and workers commute 10+ miles to their ECE provider. Three, commute distances to ECE providers vary …


Solving Affordability Challenges In Education, Housing And Childcare, Brad J. Hershbein, Michelle Miller-Adams, Brian J. Asquith, Chloe R. Gibbs May 2026

Solving Affordability Challenges In Education, Housing And Childcare, Brad J. Hershbein, Michelle Miller-Adams, Brian J. Asquith, Chloe R. Gibbs

Presentations

These three presentations emphasize that affordability challenges across education, housing, and childcare stem from structural market and policy frictions, and that effective solutions require coordinated public investment, simplified systems, and attention to both supply and demand. The first presentation argues that while college tuition growth has slowed and aid has increased, affordability challenges persist due to complexity, misperceptions, and uneven costs, and it advocates for simple tuition-free programs combined with investments in advising, streamlined pathways, and stronger school-to-work connections. The second presentation highlights a growing housing affordability crisis in the Rust Belt driven by aging housing stock and limited supply, …


More Hours, More Work: Head Start Expansions Boost Maternal Employment, Chloe R. Gibbs, Esra Kose, Maria Rosales Rueda Feb 2026

More Hours, More Work: Head Start Expansions Boost Maternal Employment, Chloe R. Gibbs, Esra Kose, Maria Rosales Rueda

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Women’s employment remains highly sensitive to childcare constraints, making childcare availability a critical lever for supporting mothers’ labor force attachment. We study the effects of expanded full-day programming in Head Start, using the 2016 federal funding initiative that targeted grantees with low full-day enrollment. Linking administrative program data, geo-coded center locations, and household data on employment, we estimate a difference-in-differences design by comparing mothers of young children in treated and untreated areas. The policy increased full-day enrollment by 19 percent and raised single mothers’ employment (1.9%), hours (2.5%), and earnings (6.5%). Results show that extending program duration meaningfully improves maternal …


Early Learning Across Decades: Advances In Measuring Head Start Effectiveness, Chloe R. Gibbs Feb 2026

Early Learning Across Decades: Advances In Measuring Head Start Effectiveness, Chloe R. Gibbs

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The Head Start program, launched in 1965 and targeted to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, remains the largest early childhood care and education (ECE) program in the United States and the only one deployed at the federal level. As such, the Head Start literature spans several decades and now allows for synthesis of findings from different contexts, time periods, and research designs. This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the rigorous evidence measuring Head Start’s effects on children, their families, and society. The focus is on how (1) the contrast between program and counterfactual conditions, (2) takeup of the program among …


How Can Early Childhood Educators Promote Equitable Outcomes Through Trauma-Informed Practice?, Elizabeth Terry Jun 2021

How Can Early Childhood Educators Promote Equitable Outcomes Through Trauma-Informed Practice?, Elizabeth Terry

Graduate Teacher Education

An abundance of research acknowledges the effects of trauma on children from an early age. Prolonged and severe trauma in early childhood can lead to adverse outcomes in important areas of development, such as one’s physical, mental, and social-emotional well-being (Morsy and Rothstein, 2019). Children present school systems and educators with the task of addressing this important, but infrequently considered issue. Trauma has lasting effects regardless of age, but the impacts of trauma during childhood are especially profound during such formative years. Children require safe spaces to learn and flourish as individuals, therefore it is important that early childhood educators …


Teaching Emotions In Early Childhood, Rocio Anaya May 2019

Teaching Emotions In Early Childhood, Rocio Anaya

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Many preschoolers may not yet be able to identify how they feel and be able to regulate their emotions. These children can experience a hard time expressing their feelings and engage in emotional outbursts that are detrimental to their goals, which also challenge their caregivers. To address this problem among preschoolers, I have created a three-day lesson plan on emotion regulation for children at the Marina Child Development Center in Marina, California.


Preschool And Prosperity, Timothy J. Bartik Sep 2014

Preschool And Prosperity, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

Substantial research shows that high-quality early childhood education programs have a large economic payoff. This payoff is increased earnings for former child participants, increased earnings for parents, and increased earnings for all workers when average worker skills improve. A program package of universal pre-K, combined with child care and parenting support for all low-income families, would cost $80 billion annually. But each dollar invested in this package would yield future economic benefits of over 10 times as great.


Preschool Teaching At A Crossroads, Marcy Whitebook Jul 2013

Preschool Teaching At A Crossroads, Marcy Whitebook

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.


Effects Of The Pre-K Program Of Kalamazoo County Ready 4s On Kindergarten Entry Test Scores: Estimates Based On Data From The Fall Of 2011 And The Fall Of 2012, Timothy J. Bartik Jun 2013

Effects Of The Pre-K Program Of Kalamazoo County Ready 4s On Kindergarten Entry Test Scores: Estimates Based On Data From The Fall Of 2011 And The Fall Of 2012, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper uses a regression discontinuity model to examine the effects on kindergarten entrance assessments of the Kalamazoo County Ready 4s (KC Ready 4s) program, a half-day pre-K program for four-year-olds in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. The results are based on test scores and other characteristics of up to 220 children participating in KC Ready 4s, with data coming from both 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 participants in the program. The estimates find consistently statistically significant effects of this pre-K program on improving entering kindergartners’ math test scores. Some estimates also suggest marginally statistically significant effects of KC Ready 4s on vocabulary test …


Earnings Benefits Of Tulsa's Pre-K Program For Different Income Groups, Timothy J. Bartik, William T. Gormley, Shirley Adelstein Jul 2011

Earnings Benefits Of Tulsa's Pre-K Program For Different Income Groups, Timothy J. Bartik, William T. Gormley, Shirley Adelstein

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper estimates future adult earnings effects associated with a universal pre-K program in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These informed projections help to compensate for the lack of long-term data on universal pre-K programs, while using metrics that relate test scores to valued social benefits. Combining test-score data from the fall of 2006 and recent findings by Chetty et al. (forthcoming) on the relationship between kindergarten test scores and adult earnings, we generate plausible projections of adult earnings effects and a partial cost-benefit analysis of the Tulsa pre-K program. We find substantial projected earnings benefits for program participants who differ by income …


Why Investing In Kids Makes Sense For Local Economies, Timothy J. Bartik Apr 2011

Why Investing In Kids Makes Sense For Local Economies, Timothy J. Bartik

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.


Why Universal Preschool Is Really A Labor Market Program, Timothy J. Bartik Jul 2009

Why Universal Preschool Is Really A Labor Market Program, Timothy J. Bartik

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.


Distributional Effects Of Early Childhood Programs And Business Incentives And Their Implications For Policy, Timothy J. Bartik Jul 2009

Distributional Effects Of Early Childhood Programs And Business Incentives And Their Implications For Policy, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This is a draft of a chapter of a planned book, Preschool and Jobs: Human Development as Economic Development, and Vice Versa [subsequently published as Investing in Kids, 2011]. This book analyzes early childhood programs effects on regional economic development. This chapter considers the effects of early childhood programs and business incentives on the income distribution. A key issue is whether early childhood programs should be targeted on the poor, or made universally available for free. Relevant considerations in addressing this issue include how benefits of early childhood programs benefit with family income, and the political feasibility of targeted versus …


How Policymakers Should Deal With The Delayed Benefits Of Early Childhood Programs, Timothy J. Bartik Jun 2009

How Policymakers Should Deal With The Delayed Benefits Of Early Childhood Programs, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This is a draft of a chapter of a planned book, Preschool and Jobs: Human Development as Economic Development, and Vice Versa [subsequently published as Investing in Kids, 2011]. This chapter considers a problem with early childhood programs: their effects on earnings are mostly long-delayed. The delay occurs because most earnings effects are on former child participants. The chapter considers appropriate discounting of benefits and how the upfront costs of early childhood programs can be delayed or reduced. It also addresses how the long-run benefits of early childhood programs can be moved up or increased.


Economic Development Benefits Of Preschool Expansion In Kalamazoo County, Timothy J. Bartik Jul 2008

Economic Development Benefits Of Preschool Expansion In Kalamazoo County, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper examines the effects of preschool expansion in Kalamazoo County on the county's economic development. Effects on the county's economic development are defined as effects on the employment and earnings of county residents. The estimated effects are found to be large relative to the costs. In addition to their relevance to Kalamazoo County, these simulations illustrate how the analysis presented in two previous papers (Bartik 2006, 2008) can be done for an individual county or metropolitan area. Such simulations may be of interest to other counties or metropolitan areas that are considering expansions in early childhood programs.


Working After Welfare: How Women Balance Jobs And Family In The Wake Of Welfare Reform, Kristin S. Seefeldt Jan 2008

Working After Welfare: How Women Balance Jobs And Family In The Wake Of Welfare Reform, Kristin S. Seefeldt

Upjohn Press

This book, tapping into the quantitative and qualitative evidence gathered in the Women’s Employment Study (WES), offers insights into the lives of women in an urban Michigan county who left welfare for work and the role their family decisions play in their labor market decisions.


Preschool And Economic Development, Timothy J. Bartik Oct 2006

Preschool And Economic Development, Timothy J. Bartik

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.