Child Care and Early Education Research Connections

Skip to main content

Canadian evidence on ten years of universal preschool policies: The good and the bad

Description:
More than ten years ago, to increase mothers' participation in the labour market and to enhance child development, the province of Quebec implemented a $5 per day universal childcare policy. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the impact of the program over more than 10 years after its implementation. A nonexperimental evaluation framework based on multiple pre- and posttreatment periods is used to estimate the policy effects. We find that the reform had important and lasting effects on the number of children aged 1-4 years old attending childcare and the numbers of hours they spend in daycare. For children aged 5 years old, we uncovered strong evidence that implementing full-day kindergarten alone was not enough to increase maternal labour force participation and weeks worked, but when combined with the low-fee daycare program it was, and these effects were also long lasting. Finally, our results on cognitive development suggest the reform did not improve school readiness and may even have had negative impacts on children from low-income families. (author abstract)
Resource Type:
Reports & Papers
Country:
Canada

Related resources include summaries, versions, measures (instruments), or other resources in which the current document plays a part. Research products funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation are related to their project records.

- You May Also Like

These resources share similarities with the current selection.

Canadian evidence on ten years of universal preschool policies: The good and the bad

Reports & Papers

Ten years after the pre-school reform: A national evaluation of the Swedish pre-school

Reports & Papers

Where next for childcare?: Learning from the last ten years of childcare policy

Other
Release: 'v1.58.0' | Built: 2024-04-08 08:44:34 EDT