Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Socioeconomic (SES) gaps in both the quality and quantity of parental time spent interacting with young children are well documented and may contribute to observed SES gaps in school readiness and educational success (e.g., Gershenson, 2013; Kalil, Ryan, & Corey, 2012; Sayer et al., 2004). One intervention that effectively narrows SES achievement gaps and has positive economic returns is high-quality early care and education (ECE) (Barnett, 2011; Elango, Garcia, Heckman, & Hojman, 2015; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). While most research has examined the direct effects of ECE programming on children, ECE attendance may also narrow SES inequalities through increased parental educational investments at home. Research finds that the parents of children participating in Head Start increased the frequency with which they engage in enrichment activities with their children, particularly non-resident fathers (Gelber & Isen, 2013). Similarly, Cascio and Schanzenbach (2013) found that the presence of universal prekindergarten in Oklahoma and Georgia increased maternal time spent caring for and helping children, including engaging in enrichment activities (e.g., reading, art, and talking), by 25 minutes among mothers with high school degrees or less. However, without pre-initiative data, they could not examine within-state changes pre- and post-reform, and the study did not examine father-child time.

We apply a difference-in-differences strategy using data from the 2003 – 2014 waves of the ATUS to investigate whether access to ECE changes how the parents of young children allocate their time. The ATUS is a nationally representative survey with time-use diaries, linked to the rich demographic, employment, education, and income information in the Current Population Survey. Specifically, we examine how the implementation of Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) program, beginning in 2005-06, led to changes in parental time spent in activities such as reading and conversing with children, facilitating children’s activities, and in physical child care.

Preliminary results suggest that, as expected, the implementation of VPK reduced the total time parents spent interacting with children, since children who attended ECE spent less time at home. Somewhat surprisingly, however, the program significantly reduced parental time spent reading to children by an average of 10 minutes per day. It also reduced the fraction of total time spent with children in reading activities by three percentage points, suggesting that the policy affected the allocation of parents’ time as well as total time spent with children. Results do not imply that children are receiving less total time engaged in reading with adults, however, as other research has found that children who attend ECE and Pre-K programs are exposed to more than ten minutes of reading with adults per day (e.g., Early et al., 2010). In next steps, we will test for heterogeneous effects by household SES, parent and child gender, and metropolitan locale. As the United States debates increases in pre-K at the state and local levels, and other countries strengthen existing programs, results have implications for policy in the United States and abroad.