Florencia López Bóo

Investing in the foundation of sustainable development: pathways to scale up for early childhood development

Building on long-term benefits of early intervention (Paper 2 of this Series) and increasing commitment to early childhood development (Paper 1 of this Series), scaled up support for the youngest children is essential to improving health, human capital, and wellbeing across the life course. In this third paper, new analyses show that the burden of poor development is higher than estimated, taking into account additional risk factors. National programmes are needed. Greater political prioritisation is core to scale-up, as are policies that afford families time and financial resources to provide nurturing care for young children. Effective and feasible programmes to support early child development are now available. All sectors, particularly education, and social and child protection, must play a role to meet the holistic needs of young children. However, health provides a critical starting point for scaling up, given its reach to pregnant women, families, and young children. Starting at conception, interventions to promote nurturing care can feasibly build on existing health and nutrition services at limited additional cost. Failure to scale up has severe personal and social consequences. Children at elevated risk for compromised development due to stunting and poverty are likely to forgo about a quarter of average adult income per year, and the cost of inaction to gross domestic product can be double what some countries currently spend on health. Services and interventions to support early childhood development are essential to realising the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Part-Time Work, Gender and Job Satisfaction: Evidence from a Developing Country

Abstract This paper investigates the relationship between part-time work and job satisfaction in Honduras. In contrast to previous work for developed countries, this paper does not find higher job satisfaction among women working part-time. Instead, for both women and men, job satisfaction is higher when in full-time work, although this finding is stronger for men. Consistent with an interpretation of working part-time as luxury consumption, the paper finds that partnered women with children, poor women or women working in the informal sector are more likely to report higher job satisfaction when working full-time than single women, partnered women without children, non-poor women or women working in the formal sector.

Cost–benefit analysis of a micronutrient supplementation and early childhood stimulation program in Nicaragua

This paper estimates the cost–benefit ratio for an integrated early childhood development program in Nicaragua (PAININ). Using longitudinal data, we estimate the average treatment effects of PAININ including micronutrient sprinkles on the prevalence of anemia and hemoglobin levels among disadvantaged children aged 6–36 months. We also estimate the effects of PAININ excluding sprinkles on cognitive outcomes among children aged 2.5–5 years. In the younger age group the program reduced anemia by 4 percentage points after 8 months and nearly 6 percentage points after 1 year; the latter is a 26% decrease in anemia. In the older age group, the program improved verbal and numeric memory after a year and a half, but the effects were modest (0.13 SD). When analyzing its potential impact on earnings, we conclude that the discounted annual costs of the program per child are less than the discounted annual increase in beneficiary earnings. Specifically, we estimate a cost–benefit ratio of 1.50 from the PAININ plus sprinkles package. Our sensitivity analysis suggests a range for this ratio between 1.30 and 2.30.

The Early Years: Child Well-being and the Role of Public Policy

This synopsis reviews the arguments in favor of a larger role for public policy in determining the well-being of young children. It explains where the region is in terms of child well-being today, how it should go about improving public programs, and the institutional challenges to implementing those programs. Together, this synopsis and the table of contents provide just a taste of the rich information and valuable policy implications contained in this years edition of the DIA.El bienestar infantil es importante tanto por razones eticas como economicas porque los ninos que prosperan en los primeros anos tienen mas probabilidad de volverse ciudadanos productivos y saludables en el futuro. Este ano, la edicion de Desarrollo en las Americas (DIA) se centra en el bienestar infantil desde la concepcion hasta los 8 anos de edad y establece la necesidad por la intervencion publica para mejorar los resultados de los ninos. El proceso del desarrollo del nino - fisico, comunicativo, cognitivo y socio-emocional - esta determinado por las experiencias que los ninos acumulan en el hogar, las guarderias, y en la escuela. Los padres, familiares, otros cuidadores, maestros y el gobierno influyen en la formacion de esas experiencias. Este libro ofrece sugerencias para la formulacion de la politica publica para mejorar esas experiencias de manera que sin duda marcaran la vida de los ninos y las sociedades en las que viven.

A Snapshot on the Quality of Seven Home Visit Parenting Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean

Although there is ample support for the causal link between home visit parenting programs and child development outcomes, few studies have explored what it is that drives this relationship – to what extent home visit programs are implemented as designed in terms of the content and strategies used by home visitors. To our knowledge, comparable data on the quality and fidelity of implementation in home visit programs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) does not exist. In light of this gap, this note presents a snapshot of home visit quality in seven countries in which home visits reach a considerable number of children. Using an observational checklist tool, we find strong rapport between visitors and families, and consistent involvement of caregivers and children in practicing activities during the visit. However, visitors rarely explain the importance of these activities in relation to child development, often times do not bring the necessary materials, and do little to encourage meaningful dialogue and feedback from caregivers nor demonstrate the desired activity or behavior. Only one third of the observed visitors emphasized language development throughout the visit. It is important to emphasize that these results are not generalizable due to the small and non-random nature of the sample of home visits observed. Nonetheless, this study serves as a pilot of the instrument and type of domains that can and should be measured in a home visit program in order to ensure implementation quality.

How is Child Care Quality Measured?: A toolkit

This toolkit is designed to be a resource for researchers and technical staff of any discipline, working for governments and institutions interested in measuring and monitoring the quality of child care centers serving infants ages 0 to 3 years (36 months).

Delivering Parenting Interventions through Health Services in the Caribbean

Integrating early childhood interventions with health and nutrition services has been recommended, however there is limited information on interventions that are effective and feasible for delivery through health services. In this trial we developed and evaluated a parenting program that could be integrated into primary health center visits.

Cognitive Skills Gaps in India: Can (Late) Nutrition Ameliorate Them?

This paper explores the (late) nutrition-cognition link using novel panel data from India for very young children. We estimate a value-added model of cognitive development that corrects for biases in the previous literature. Moreover, we use exposure to the national Mid Day Meal Scheme interacted with a non-linearity in how birth year exogenously affects the probability of enrollment in public schools as an instrumental variable. We find that a 1-standard-deviation increase in height-for-age at 5 years of age (i.e., beyond the 1,000-day window of opportunity) leads to cognitive test scores 11 to 14 percent of a standard deviation higher at age 8. This positive and significant effect supports the recent strand of literature on catch-up growth. Our analysis also suggests that providing low-caste children with the average nutritional status of their upper-caste counterparts would close around one-fourth of the existing caste cognitive differentials for boys. For girls, the gap is closed by half.

Sex-Differences in Language and Socio-emotional Skills in Early Childhood

This study explores sex differences in language and socio-emotional skills. It focuses on children 7 months old to 6 years old in Chile in 2012 and Nicaragua in 2013. A focus on young children allowed for ruling out a set of environmental and identity effects to explain the gap. Females had an advantage in both countries and both dimensions. Males in Chile scored at -0.13 standard deviations (SD) in language in the distribution of females. In addition, males scored at -0.20 SD in socio-emotional skills. The gaps in Nicaragua were not statistically different to those in Chile. Thus geographical and cultural variation across the two countries did not affect the gap. Within countries, variation in family characteristics, parenting practices and health investments did not explain the gap either. These findings shed light on the role of biological and environmental factors to explain sex gaps. The identification of the role of these factors is necessary to inform policy.

Os primeiros anos: O bem-estar infantil e o papel das políticas públicas

This synopsis reviews the arguments in favor of a larger role for public policy in determining the well-being of young children. It explains where the region is in terms of child well-being today, how it should go about improving public programs, and the institutional challenges to implementing those programs. Together, this synopsis and the table of contents provide just a taste of the rich information and valuable policy implications contained in this years edition of the DIA.El bienestar infantil es importante tanto por razones eticas como economicas porque los ninos que prosperan en los primeros anos tienen mas probabilidad de volverse ciudadanos productivos y saludables en el futuro. Este ano, la edicion de Desarrollo en las Americas (DIA) se centra en el bienestar infantil desde la concepcion hasta los 8 anos de edad y establece la necesidad por la intervencion publica para mejorar los resultados de los ninos. El proceso del desarrollo del nino - fisico, comunicativo, cognitivo y socio-emocional - esta determinado por las experiencias que los ninos acumulan en el hogar, las guarderias, y en la escuela. Los padres, familiares, otros cuidadores, maestros y el gobierno influyen en la formacion de esas experiencias. Este libro ofrece sugerencias para la formulacion de la politica publica para mejorar esas experiencias de manera que sin duda marcaran la vida de los ninos y las sociedades en las que viven.