Preventing Child Maltreatment: Beneficial Side Effects of Public Childcare

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review

Authors

  • Malte Sandner
  • Stephan Lothar Thomsen
  • Libertad González

Research Organisations

External Research Organisations

  • Institute for Employment Research (IAB) of the Federal Employment Agency
  • Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
  • Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW)
  • Universität Pompeu Fabra (UPF)
  • Nuremberg Institute of Technology
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Details

Original languageEnglish
Number of pages61
JournalThe Economic Journal
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - Jun 2024

Abstract

We investigate the impact of public childcare provision on the incidence of severe child maltreatment. For identification, we exploit a 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, we find that an increase in childcare slots by one percentage point in a county reduced child maltreatment cases leading to out-of-home placement by about 1%. Our results suggest that the provision of universal public childcare may be more cost-effective than previously thought.

Cite this

Preventing Child Maltreatment: Beneficial Side Effects of Public Childcare. / Sandner, Malte; Thomsen, Stephan Lothar; González, Libertad.
In: The Economic Journal, 06.2024.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review

Sandner, M, Thomsen, SL & González, L 2024, 'Preventing Child Maltreatment: Beneficial Side Effects of Public Childcare', The Economic Journal. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueae070
Sandner, M., Thomsen, S. L., & González, L. (2024). Preventing Child Maltreatment: Beneficial Side Effects of Public Childcare. The Economic Journal. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueae070
Sandner M, Thomsen SL, González L. Preventing Child Maltreatment: Beneficial Side Effects of Public Childcare. The Economic Journal. 2024 Jun. Epub 2024 Jun. doi: 10.1093/ej/ueae070
Sandner, Malte ; Thomsen, Stephan Lothar ; González, Libertad. / Preventing Child Maltreatment : Beneficial Side Effects of Public Childcare. In: The Economic Journal. 2024.
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