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Preventing child maltreatment: Beneficial side effects of public childcare provision

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Abstract

We investigate the impact of public childcare provision on the incidence of child maltreatment. For identification, we exploit a government 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, our results show that an increase in childcare slots by one percentage point in a county led to a decline of 1.8% in child maltreatment cases. Our findings suggest that the provision of universal public childcare may be more cost-effective that previously thought.

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  • Malte Sandner & Stephan L. Thomsen & Libertad González Luna, 2020. "Preventing child maltreatment: Beneficial side effects of public childcare provision," Economics Working Papers 1744, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1744
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    Cited by:

    1. Thomsen, Stephan L. & Trunzer, Johannes, 2020. "Did the Bologna Process Challenge the German Apprenticeship System? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 13806, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    child maltreatment; child abuse and neglect; early childcare;

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

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