Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This project aims to identify the effects of child care assistance policies on children’s long-run outcomes. Specifically, I focus on whether certain eligibility criteria for child care assistance determined by the state children are born in (i.e. having minimum hours of work requirements and the number of activities that classify as work activities) have an effect on years of education completed by 2013. To answer this, I use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Policies Database. I use a reduced form quasi-experimental approach that takes advantage of the natural variation in state child care assistance policies’ eligibility criteria after the welfare reform of 1996. Preliminary results using OLS regression with controls and cohort fixed effects seem to indicate that children born in states without minimum hours of work requirements have more years of education by 2013, and that increasing the number of activities that qualify under the work requirement also has small positive effects on schooling. However, I do not see any effects of not having minimum hours of work requirements on years of schooling using a difference-in-difference approach. Ordered logistic regression of educational attainment (i.e. HS drop out, HS graduate, college enrolled) indicates these two eligibility criteria have effects on higher educational attainment.