Poverty, Early Childhood Care and Education Arrangement, and Socio-Emotional Development: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11

Background and Purpose: This research examined whether income poverty is associated with early childhood care and education (ECCE) arrangement, and whether the putative impact of income poverty on children’s socioemotional development differs by the type of ECCE arrangement that children experienced. Prior research examining the purported link between income and ECCE arrangement has found that differences in enrollment particularly in center-based ECCE between higher and lower income families appear to have diminished in recent years, and so too for income-related differences in academic achievement. While prior studies have highlighted trends in inequality in income, enrollment, and academic achievement, the current study emphasizes the impact of being poor and near-poor using the official Census measure of income poverty. Additionally, this study extends the literature by assessing outcomes related to children’s socioemotional development rather than academic achievement.

Methods: Data were drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 to first estimate a logistic regression model (n=13,611) assessing the relationship between income poverty status and ECCE arrangement. Then, we estimated OLS regression models (n=11,304) assessing the impact of poverty status and ECCE arrangement on teacher reported socioemotional skills, namely, self-control and interpersonal skills. In the OLS regression models, variables related to poverty status and ECCE arrangement were combined and classified into nine categories that included: 1) poor children who received parental care; 2) near-poor children who received parental care; 3) non-poor children who received parental care; 4) poor children who received home-based (non-parental) care; 5) near-poor children who received home-based (non-parental) care; 6) non-poor children who received home-based (non-parental) care; 7) poor children who received center-based care; 8) near-poor children who received center-based care; and 9) non-poor children who received center-based care (i.e., the reference group).

Results: In the logistic regression model, the findings revealed that poor and near-poor children were 70.6% and 58.3% less likely than non-poor children, respectively, to have received center-based care the year before kindergarten. In the first OLS regression model assessing socioemotional skills, poor and near-poor children who received parental care scored .051 units and .023 units lower on teacher reported self-control, respectively, than non-poor children who received center-based care. Additionally, near-poor children who received home-based (non-parental) care scored .024 units lower on teacher reported self-control than non-poor children who received center-based care. In the second OLS regression model assessing socioemotional skills, poor children who received parental care scored .026 units lower on teacher reported interpersonal skills than non-poor children who received center-based care. Moreover, near-poor children who received home-based care scored.029 units lower on teacher reported interpersonal skills than non-poor children who received center-based care.

Conclusions and Implications: While income-related gaps in both enrollment in center-based ECCE and academic achievement may have diminished in recent years, the findings suggest that substantial differences remain in both enrollment and socioemotional development between poor and near-poor children, and non-poor children. The findings add to the body of evidence implicating an expanded role for child care subsidy programs that could help alleviate these income differences.