Study Overview
A substantial literature shows that U.S. early childhood interventions have important long-term economic benefits. However, there is little evidence on this question for developing countries. We report substantial effects on the earnings of participants in a randomized intervention conducted in 1986–1987 that gave psychosocial stimulation to growth-stunted Jamaican toddlers. The intervention consisted of weekly visits from community health workers over a 2-year period that taught parenting skills and encouraged mothers and children to interact in ways that develop cognitive and socioemotional skills. The authors reinterviewed 105 out of 129 study participants 20 years later and found that the intervention increased earnings by 25%, enough for them to catch up to the earnings of a nonstunted comparison group identified at baseline (65 out of 84 participants).
Study Results
Twenty years after the intervention was conducted, we find that the earnings of the stimulation group are 25% higher than those of the control group and caught up to the earnings of a non-stunted comparison group. These findings show that a simple psychosocial stimulation intervention in early childhood for disadvantaged children can have a substantial effect on labor market outcomes and can compensate for developmental delays. The estimated impacts are substantially larger than the impacts reported for the US–based interventions, suggesting that ECD interventions may be an especially effective strategy for improving long-term outcomes of disadvantaged children in developing countries.
Intervention: Psychosocial stimulation for growth-stunted toddlers