Expanding access to pre-school education and childcare services has been a key policy on the agenda of many governments for over 30 years. Several motivations have been at the heart of these policies. On the one hand, expanding access to quality pre-school education is expected to have positive...

Since the 1970s, many countries have established free or highly subsidized education for all preschool children in the hope of improving children’s learning and socio-economic life chances and encouraging mothers to join the labor force. Evaluations reveal that these policies can increase...

This paper critically reviews what we know about the long-term effects of parental leave and early childhood education programs. We find only limited evidence that expansions of parental leave durations improved long-run educational or labor market outcomes of the children whose parents were...