Elsevier

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 97, November 2013, Pages 241-249
Social Science & Medicine

Subsidized childcare and child development in Colombia: Effects of Hogares Comunitarios de Bienestar as a function of timing and length of exposure

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.10.029Get rights and content

Abstract

Rigorous evidence regarding the impact of early care and education on children's development comes primarily from high-income nations. A few studies from Latin America and the Caribbean have identified benefits of conditional cash transfer and home visiting programs on children's development. However, there is still controversy around the impact and cost-effectiveness of childcare approaches. Further research is needed to understand how scaled-up childcare settings may support the development of low-income children in Latin America.

To that end, the present study sought to identify the effects of exposure to a subsidized childcare program in Colombia on children's nutritional status, cognitive and socioemotional development. This community-based program, known as Hogares Comunitarios de Bienestar (HCB), serves 800 thousand low-income children under age 6, delivering home-based childcare, supplementary nutrition, and psychosocial stimulation. We analyzed data on 10,173 program beneficiary children (ages 3–6) collected in 2007. We compared beneficiary children who had been in the program for a long time with beneficiary children who had been in the program for a month or less, by age group, to estimate program exposure effects. We used a matching estimator to correct for self-selection into different exposure levels.

Results indicated that cognitive development improved 0.15 to 0.3 of a standard deviation (SD) after at least 15 months of exposure for children between 3 and 6 years of age. Socioemotional skills improved 0.12 to 0.3 SD for children older than 3 after at least 15 months of program exposure. No significant gains were found for nutritional status. The estimated benefit-cost ratio ranged from 1.0 to 2.7, depending upon varying discount rates. Findings lend support for a potentially effective strategy to promote the development of low-income children in Colombia and other developing nations.

Highlights

► We estimated effects of length of exposure to the largest public childcare program in Colombia on children's development. ► We found modest effects of the program on children's cognitive and socioemotional development but not on nutritional status. ► Scores on cognitive development were up to 0.3 SD higher for older children exposed to the HCB program 15 months or longer. ► Older children exposed to the HCB program for at least 15 months exhibited less withdrawal and isolation behaviors. ► The estimated benefit-cost ratio suggests that the HCB program may potentially afford beneficiaries a modest increase future earnings.

Section snippets

Study design

As part of the HCB program evaluation, data was collected from February to July 2007 on a sample of 1042 HCB childcare homes, 12,216 program beneficiary children, and 13,321 non-beneficiary comparison children nationwide. By the time the evaluation was conducted, the HCB program had been operating for almost 20 years and had reached all geographic areas of the country. Therefore, the treatment could not be randomly assigned. The HCB evaluation procedures were considered of minimal risk to

Results

In this section, we present general descriptive statistics on the sample, estimates of program effects on beneficiary children with different exposure levels compared to children with less than a month of program exposure, and benefit-cost estimates. In Table 2 we present descriptive statistics of the observed family and child characteristics (top panel) and child outcome variables (lower panel) used in the analysis by group (treatment and control). In Table 3, Table 4, Table 5 we present

Discussion

In sum, we found modest positive effects on children's cognitive and socio-emotional development for older children that were exposed to the HCB program for more than 15 months. These effects represent important increases in cognitive ability test scores ranging from 4% to 5.4%, and close to 8% for socio-emotional development scores. This evidence supports the hypothesis that program effects would be greater for children who entered earlier and stayed longer in the HCB program (Behrman et al.,

Acknowledgments

This study is based on the evaluation of the program Hogares Communitarios de Bienestar conducted by the Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Económico (CEDE) at Universidad de los Andes in partnership with Profamilia. It was funded by the United Nations Development Programme through the Departamento de Planeación Nacional de Colombia and by the Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF). The authors gratefully thank Alejandro Gaviria, Carmen Elisa Flórez, Paul René Ocampo, Belén

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