Wealth Gradients in Early Childhood Cognitive Development in Five Latin American Countries
Research from the United States shows that gaps in early cognitive and noncognitive abilities appear early in the life cycle. Little is known about this important question for developing countries. This paper provides new evidence of sharp differen...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/02/18983740/wealth-gradients-early-childhood-cognitive-development-five-latin-american-countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17328 |
| Summary: | Research from the United States shows
that gaps in early cognitive and noncognitive abilities
appear early in the life cycle. Little is known about this
important question for developing countries. This paper
provides new evidence of sharp differences in cognitive
development by socioeconomic status in early childhood for
five Latin American countries. To help with comparability,
the paper uses the same measure of receptive language
ability for all five countries. It finds important
differences in development in early childhood across
countries, and steep socioeconomic gradients within every
country. For the three countries where panel data to follow
children over time exists, there are few substantive changes
in scores once children enter school. These results are
robust to different ways of defining socioeconomic status,
to different ways of standardizing outcomes, and to
selective non-response on the measure of cognitive development. |
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