Who Looks after the Kids? The Effects of Childcare Choice on Early Childhood Development in China*

Jing Zhang; Simon Appleton; Lina Song; Bing Liu

doi:10.1111/obes.12410

Who Looks after the Kids? The Effects of Childcare Choice on Early Childhood Development in China*

Jing Zhang, Simon Appleton, Lina Song, Bing Liu

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This paper examines whether childcare choice affects the early childhood development of children aged 7–59 months. Using the data from Chinese Family Panel Studies, we look at household choices between parental and grandparental cares and the timing of four key early life achievements – walking, talking, counting and toilet training. We conceptualize early childhood development within a household production model, which enables us to identify the impacts of childcare. Our results suggest that compared with parental care, grandparental care delays the achievement of all four outcome measures. Grandparental care is particularly disadvantageous for children who are ‘left‐behind’ by migrant parents.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	619-640
Number of pages	22
Journal	Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics
Volume	83
Issue number	3
Early online date	11 Feb 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/obes.12410
Publication status	Published - Jun 2021

Bibliographical note

© 2020 The Authors. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics published by Oxford University and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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10.1111/obes.12410Licence: CC BY 3.0

Who Looks after the Kids? The Effects of ChildcareChoice on Early Childhood Development inChina
© 2020 The Authors. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics published by Oxford University and John Wiley & Sons Ltd This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 125 KBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

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title = "Who Looks after the Kids? The Effects of Childcare Choice on Early Childhood Development in China*",

abstract = "This paper examines whether childcare choice affects the early childhood development of children aged 7–59 months. Using the data from Chinese Family Panel Studies, we look at household choices between parental and grandparental cares and the timing of four key early life achievements – walking, talking, counting and toilet training. We conceptualize early childhood development within a household production model, which enables us to identify the impacts of childcare. Our results suggest that compared with parental care, grandparental care delays the achievement of all four outcome measures. Grandparental care is particularly disadvantageous for children who are {\textquoteleft}left‐behind{\textquoteright} by migrant parents.",

author = "Jing Zhang and Simon Appleton and Lina Song and Bing Liu",

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AU - Appleton, Simon

AU - Song, Lina

AU - Liu, Bing

N1 - © 2020 The Authors. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics published by Oxford University and John Wiley & Sons Ltd This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

PY - 2021/6

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N2 - This paper examines whether childcare choice affects the early childhood development of children aged 7–59 months. Using the data from Chinese Family Panel Studies, we look at household choices between parental and grandparental cares and the timing of four key early life achievements – walking, talking, counting and toilet training. We conceptualize early childhood development within a household production model, which enables us to identify the impacts of childcare. Our results suggest that compared with parental care, grandparental care delays the achievement of all four outcome measures. Grandparental care is particularly disadvantageous for children who are ‘left‐behind’ by migrant parents.

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Who Looks after the Kids? The Effects of Childcare Choice on Early Childhood Development in China*

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