Can early universal preschool reduce socioeconomic inequalities in child development? The role of duration and intensity of preschool attendance in the French birth cohort, Elfe

High quality early childhood education and care programs can foster the development of cognitive and noncognitive skills. We estimate the effects of the duration of attending free universal preschool ( école maternelle ) in France between age 3 and 4 on children’s cognitive skills and global development, leveraging differences by birth month to identify plausibly exogenous variation in duration of preschool exposure. Using nationally representative data from the French Elfe ( Etude Longitudinale francaise depuis l’Enfance ) birth cohort and a large sample of more than 12,000 children, we measure cognitive skills and global development via the British Ability Scale and the Child Development Index, respectively, when children were approximately 3.5 years of age. Our results provide evidence that universal preschool programs have the potential to foster children’s early cognitive skills and global development, and may help reduce early socioeconomic inequalities. Children from disadvantaged families, in terms of parental education and income, and those attending a disadvantaged school, appear to reap particularly large benefits in early cognitive skills and global development from a longer duration in preschool than their more advantaged peers. While months spent at school play a positive role in child development, we find no effect of greater intensity (hours per day) of attendance, or of attending after-school and/or lunch sessions.