García Jorge Luis, Heckman James J
John E. Walker Department of Economics, Clemson University.
Center for the Economics of Human Development and Department of Economics, The University of Chicago.
Annu Rev Econom. 2023;15:349-388. doi: 10.1146/annurev-economics-021423-031905. Epub 2023 May 3.
This paper compares early childhood enrichment programs that promote social mobility for disadvantaged children within and across generations. Instead of conducting a standard meta-analysis, we present a harmonized primary data analysis of programs that shape current policy. Our analysis is a template for rigorous syntheses and comparisons across programs. We analyze new long-run life-cycle data collected for iconic programs when participants are middle-aged and their children are in their twenties. The iconic programs are omnibus in nature and offer many services to children and their parents. We compare them with relatively low-cost more focused home-visiting programs. Successful interventions target both children and their caregivers. They engage caregivers and improve the home lives of children. They permanently boost cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Participants in programs that enrich home environments grow up with better skills, jobs, earnings, marital stability, and health, as well as reduced participation in crime. Long-run monetized gains are substantially greater than program costs for the iconic programs. We investigate the mechanisms promoting successful family lives for participants and report intergenerational effects on their children. A study of focused home-visiting programs that target parents enables us to isolate a crucial component of successful programs: they activate and promote parenting skills of child caregivers. The home-visiting programs we analyze produce outcomes comparable to those of the iconic omnibus programs. National implementation of the programs with long-run follow up that we analyze would substantially shrink the overall US Black-White earnings gap.
本文比较了旨在促进弱势儿童代内和代际社会流动的幼儿充实项目。我们没有进行标准的荟萃分析，而是对塑造当前政策的项目进行了统一的原始数据分析。我们的分析是对各项目进行严格综合和比较的模板。我们分析了为标志性项目收集的新的长期生命周期数据，这些项目的参与者已步入中年，其子女也已二十多岁。这些标志性项目本质上是综合性的，为儿童及其父母提供多项服务。我们将它们与成本相对较低、针对性更强的家访项目进行比较。成功的干预措施既针对儿童，也针对他们的照顾者。这些措施促使照顾者参与进来，改善儿童的家庭生活。它们能永久性地提升认知和非认知技能。参与丰富家庭环境项目的人长大后具备更好的技能、工作、收入、婚姻稳定性和健康状况，犯罪率也更低。从长期来看，标志性项目的货币化收益大幅高于项目成本。我们研究了促进参与者家庭生活成功的机制，并报告了对其子女的代际影响。一项针对家长的重点家访项目研究使我们能够分离出成功项目的一个关键要素：它们激活并提升儿童照顾者的育儿技能。我们分析的家访项目产生的结果与标志性综合项目相当。我们所分析的项目若能在全国实施并进行长期跟踪，将大幅缩小美国整体的黑白收入差距。
