Preventing Child Maltreatment: Beneficial Side Effects of Public Childcare

Abstract

"We investigate the impact of public childcare provision on the incidence of severe child maltreatment. For identification, we exploit a reform that expanded early childcare in Germany, generating large temporal and spatial variation in childcare coverage at the county level. Using high-quality administrative data covering all reported cases of child maltreatment in Germany by county and year, we find that an increase in childcare slots by one percentage point in a county reduced child maltreatment cases leading to out-of-home placement by about 1%. Our results suggest that the provision of universal public childcare may be more cost effective than previously thought." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Sandner, M., Thomsen, S. & González, L. (2024): Preventing Child Maltreatment: Beneficial Side Effects of Public Childcare. In: The Economic Journal, Vol. 135, No. 665, p. 321-353., accepted on July 16, 2024. DOI:10.1093/ej/ueae070