Parental Investment, School Choice, and the Persistent Benefits of Intervention in Early Childhood

Abstract

We present evidence from a randomized experiment on the impacts of a six-month early childhood home-visiting program on child outcomes at school entry. Two and a half years after completion of the program, we find persistent intervention effects on child working memory - a key skill of executive functioning which plays a central role in children’s development of cognitive and socio-emotional skills. We also find that the program had persistent effects on both parental time investments and preschool enrollment, with children in the treatment group enrolling earlier and in better quality preschools. Our finding of improved parental preschool selection in treatment villages points to an important intervention-induced persistent shift in parental investment behavior which might lead to long-term benefits over the life-cycle.