The impact of centre‐based childcare on non‐cognitive skills of young children

Early development of non-cognitive skills has long-lasting benefits for children’s subsequent educationalattainment and wages. Drawing on a rich, nationally representative longitudinal sample of young children inIreland, we present new evidence on whether the use of centre-based childcare (CBC) in infancy and early yearspromotes non-cognitive skills by school entry. We focus on the type of non-parental childcare used by motherswho are working when their child is 9 months old, comparing CBC with other forms of non-parental care. Weconsider the impact of childcare type on three domains of socio-emotional skills: externalizing, internalizingand prosocial behaviours. We find negative effects of CBC on both externalizing and prosocial behaviours.With a cumulative value-added model, we estimate that CBC at age 3 worsens externalizing behaviour at age 5by 0.11 standard deviations compared to other forms of non-parental care, equivalent to 44% of the differencein externalizing behaviour between children with a mother with/without tertiary education. The effect of CBCon the externalizing dimension of socio-emotional skills of children entering school is consistent across severalspecifications and robustness checks. Given planned expansion of CBC for those needing subsidized provision,we conclude that such measures could exacerbate socio-emotional inequalities