Excerpt

Access to early learning and child care has many purposes, or rationales. For decades, sociologists, child development researchers, and economists, among others, have touted the positive impact that participation in quality early childhood education and care can have on children, their families and communities more broadly (for example, see Penn, 2011).

A recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Economics focuses on one of these purposes, or rationales, for ELCC: womens’ labour market participation. Using the rollout of Nova Scotia’s full-day Pre-Primary Program for four-year-olds, first introduced in 2018, the paper’s author, Jasmin Thomas, finds that the introduction did have a positive and significant impact on mother’s labour market participation. 

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