The Effects of Universal Pre-K for 3-Year-Old Children on Mothers' Employment and Families' Economic Well-Being: Evidence from New York City

Background High-quality child care is instrumental for families to balance between parents’ paid employment and young children’s developmental needs. Research demonstrates that universal prekindergarten (UPK), a free preschool program offered to all age-eligible children, enlarges children’s preschool enrollment and improves school-readiness. However, it is less well-understood whether UPK supports parents’ employment and earnings and whether it secures the economic well-being of families with young children. This paper focuses on New York City’s 3-K for All program (3K) to examine the effects of UPK on mothers’ employment and families’ economic well-being.

Methods This paper draws on panel data from a representative sample of New York City families with young children from the Early Childhood Poverty Tracker (ECPT), collected from 2017 to 2023. I focus on a sample of families with children born in 2016 who were eligible for the 3K in 2019 (before COVID-19) (N = 553). Mother’s employment outcomes include labor force participation, employment, work hours, and earnings. Families’ economic well-being is measured as families’ poverty status, income-to-needs ratio, and material hardship. This study assesses the effects of UPK availability on these outcomes using a natural experiment induced by a staggered rollout of the 3K program across New York City school districts, which divided families into a treatment group (3K was available in their district when their child turned three) and a comparison group (3K was not yet available when their child turned three). This study applies a difference-in-difference approach within an event-study design to assess how mothers’ employment and families’ economic well-being changed as their child aged from pre-eligible years (age 0-2) to the eligible year (age 3), as well as after the child aged out of the 3K eligibility (age 4-6) for the treatment group, relative to the comparison group. I will also stratify the sample by poverty status, the number of parents, and race and ethnic groups to assess differential program effects across families’ characteristics.

Results Preliminary findings indicate positive employment effects of UPK which last a few years after the child aged out from the 3K program, particularly for mothers of low-income families and partnered mothers. In models examining the effects on poverty status and material hardship I find suggestive evidence that the availability of 3K reduces income poverty and material hardship during children’s preschool years.

Implications: Despite the developmental implications of mothers’ employment and families’ economic well-being during early childhood, limited studies have examined the role of UPK on parental outcomes. This paper contributes to the literature by assessing the benefits of UPK for parents. The findings deepen our knowledge of when mothers begin to enter the labor force in anticipation of the UPK program and how long the program's effects last.