This paper first develops a theoretical model of the returns to daycare, which attempts to show that families enroll their children into daycare based on its expected benefits and costs. The paper then moves to an empirical study that seeks to determine whether enrolling an infant in daycare affects his or her later-in-life employment and poverty status. To identify the causal effect of interest, the econometric approach employs a recently developed panel estimator that accommodates the dynamic nature of later-in-life employment and income, while also controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. The main finding is that, although infant daycare enrollment appears to correlate with positive later-in-life outcomes, addressing potential bias in that link renders the estimated effects highly imprecise, such that one cannot confidently conclude whether daycare helps or hinders later-in-life outcomes.

中文翻译：

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婴儿日托对晚年就业结果的影响

本文首先开发了一个日托回报的理论模型，试图表明家庭根据其预期收益和成本将孩子纳入日托。然后，本文转向一项实证研究，旨在确定让婴儿参加日托是否会影响他或她以后的就业和贫困状况。为了确定兴趣的因果效应，计量经济学方法采用了最近开发的面板估计量，该估计量适应了晚年就业和收入的动态性质，同时还控制了未观察到的异质性。主要发现是，尽管婴儿日托入学似乎与积极的晚年结局相关，但解决该联系中的潜在偏差会使估计的影响变得非常不精确，因此人们无法自信地断定日托是否有助于或阻碍晚年的发展。生活的结果。