We use Swiss data to test whether intergenerational educational mobility is affected by the age at which children enroll in kindergarten. Taking advantage of heterogeneity across cantons we find that early kindergarten enrollment significantly increases educational mobility.Kindergarten, pre-school enrollment, educational mobility, intergenerational transmission of education

Bauer, Philipp C.

Riphahn, Regina T.

English

Research Papers in Economics

D
I
S
C
U
S
S
I
O
N
 
P
A
P
E
R
 
S
E
R
I
E
S
Forschungsinstitut 
zur Zukunft der Arbeit
Institute for the Study 
of Labor 
Kindergarten Enrollment and the 
Intergenerational Transmission of Education
IZA DP No. 4466
September 2009
Philipp C. Bauer
Regina T. Riphahn 
Kindergarten Enrollment and the 
Intergenerational Transmission  
of Education 
 
 
Philipp C. Bauer 
economiesuisse 
 
Regina T. Riphahn 
Uniersity of Erlangen-Nuremberg 
and IZA 
 
 
 
 
Discussion Paper No. 4466 
September 2009 
 
 
 
IZA 
 
P.O. Box 7240   
53072 Bonn   
Germany   
 
Phone: +49-228-3894-0  
Fax: +49-228-3894-180   
E-mail: iza@iza.org 
 
 
 
 
 
Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in 
this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. 
 
The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center 
and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit 
organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of 
Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and 
conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) 
original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of 
policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public.  
 
IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. 
Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be 
available directly from the author. IZA Discussion Paper No. 4466 
September 2009 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ABSTRACT 
 
Kindergarten Enrollment and the  
Intergenerational Transmission of Education 
 
We use Swiss data to test whether intergenerational educational mobility is affected by the 
age at which children enroll in kindergarten. Taking advantage of heterogeneity across 
cantons we find that early kindergarten enrollment significantly increases educational 
mobility. 
 
 
JEL Classification:  I2, I21, J24, D30 
  
Keywords:  Kindergarten, pre-school enrollment, educational mobility, intergenerational 
transmission of education 
 
 
Corresponding author: 
 
Regina T. Riphahn 
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg 
Lange Gasse 20 
90403 Nürnberg 
Germany 
E-mail: regina.riphahn@wiso.uni-erlangen.de   
  
1 
 
1.   Introduction 
  High intergenerational transmission of educational attainment within families is one of 
the major roadblocks on the way to equal opportunities in the labor market and beyond. A 
large literature has attempted to separate genetic and behavioral determinants of 
intergenerational education transmission (e.g. Björklund et al. 2006). In addition, institutional 
factors have been investigated as potential determinants of educational mobility. Past studies 
of such institutional or 'school design' issues focused, e.g., on school tracking and its timing or 
on age at school entry. The former confirm that early tracking reduces educational mobility, 
presumably because child ability measures at early age are noisy and tracking decisions 
follow parental preferences more than child characteristics (Hanushek and Wößmann 2006). 
Studies on the relevance of school entry age argue that early schooling may equalize 
educational endowment differences (Currie 2001). 
  We extend the literature on school design as a determinant of intergenerational 
mobility and investigate the causal effect of kindergarten enrollment age on educational 
mobility, which has not been studied so far. Kindergarten enrollment age and time spent in 
pre-school have been evaluated with respect to their effect on school and labor market 
attainment (e.g. Elder and Lubotsky 2009). Deming and Dynarski (2008) suggest that 
postponing kindergarten and school entry increases inequality because unequal backgrounds 
predominate longer in a child's life. Since particularly the better-educated parents postpone 
the school entry of their children, the authors argue that the disadvantage of other children is 
enhanced. Two methodological problems in identifying causal age at entry effects are that (i) 
age at entry is endogenously determined at the individual level and (ii) it is difficult to 
empirically separate the effects of age from those of age at entry.  
  We solve the first problem by taking advantage of exogenous variation in age at 
kindergarten entry across 26 Swiss cantons. We address the second problem by investigating  
2 
 
educational outcomes that are not age-specific: given the Swiss secondary schooling system 
with ability-based tracks, we evaluate the correlation between parental education and the 
child's probability of attending the highest and most academically-oriented track. We compare 
this correlation across exogenously set kindergarten entry age regimes. This identifies the 
effect of kindergarten entry age on intergenerational educational mobility if the standard 
assumption of the difference-in-differences approach holds, i.e., if we were to observe the 
same or similar patterns of intergenerational mobility across cantons in the absence of 
heterogeneous kindergarten regulations. Since the overall education system is generally 
homogenous across the 26 Swiss cantons this standard assumption appears to be plausible and 
we can identify causal effects of kindergarten regulations by comparing educational mobility 
across cantons. 
 
2.   Data and Empirical Approach 
  Our data are taken from the 2000 census which provides information on the entire 
Swiss population. In order to evaluate the effect of parental education on child educational 
outcomes we code the type of secondary school a youth attends at age 17 (high – middle – 
low) as well as parents' highest educational degree completed.
1 We focus on the group of 17- 
years-olds (the birth cohort of 1983) first, because at the age of 17 track choice is completed 
and second, because this group is most likely to still live in the parental household: in the 
census data we can only connect parent and child observations if both reside in the same 
household (see Bauer and Riphahn 2007 for further detail). Our sample consists of 62,535 
observations.  
  The Swiss Federal Statistical Office provided us with cantonal data on (i) the number 
                                                 
1 Parental education is coded using as possible outcomes: high, middle, and low 
educational degrees, education information missing, or parent missing.  
3 
 
of 4/5/6-years-olds in kindergarten in 1987/1988/1989 and their respective population shares, 
(ii) the average age of children in kindergarten between 1987 and 1989. These are the years 
when the birth cohort of 1983 was to attend kindergarten. Table 1 describes the heterogeneity 
in kindergarten utilization across Swiss federal cantons: the average age of kindergarten 
children is 5.4 years and varies between 4.0 and 6.0. We observe some cantons with about 80 
percent of all 4-years-olds in kindergarten and others with no 4-years-olds, some cantons 
which enroll 96 percent of all 6-years-olds and others with less than ten percent of all 5- and 
6-years-olds in kindergarten. 
  At a descriptive level Table 2 presents the correlation patterns between cantonal 
average age at kindergarten enrollment and educational mobility. We see (row 1) that the 
probability for a 17-years-old to attend the highest educational track indeed varies by parental 
educational background, reaching 11.5 percent if parents have low education (column 1) and 
63.3 percent if parents have high education (column 2). The values differ by 51.8 percentage 
points (column 3) and the latter is higher by a factor 5.5 (column 4). The next rows indicate 
that the relevance of parental educational background varies significantly depending on the 
cantonal kindergarten regime: rows 2 and 3 consider only observations in cantons where 
average kindergarten age is one standard deviation above or below the mean, rows 4 and 5 
split the sample in the top and bottom half of all cantons. We see in columns 3 and 4 that the 
absolute and relative differences in educational mobility vary between the considered pairs: 
the relative difference factor increases to 10.98 in regions with a high average age in 
kindergarten (row 3) and to 8.24 in cantons with late kindergarten enrollment (row 5). The p-
values indicate that educational mobility, as described in column 4, is significantly higher if 
children enter kindergarten early. 
  In order to test whether this evidence holds up to controls for various composition 
effects at the household and regional level we estimate multinomial logit regression models.  
4 
 
The dependent variable describes the educational track attended by the individual child (Y). 
We control for indicators of parental educational background (PE), household level, regional, 
and individual characteristics (X), as well as for an indicator of the kindergarten provision 
(KG) in the canton where the 17-years-old lives in 2000.
 2 To the extent that families moved 
across cantonal boundaries after kindergarten age our estimation suffers from measurement 
error. Finally, we add interaction terms of parental education and kindergarten indicators (PE 
 KG):  
     Y = a + b PE + c0 X + c1 KG + d (PE  KG) + , (1) 
      Y /   PE = b + d KG  (2) 
  A jointly significant coefficient vector "d" suggests that the impact of parental 
education varies depending on the level of cantonal kindergarten provision and that 
educational mobility is on average modified by kindergarten enrollment.  
  We evaluate the kindergarten effect and its magnitude using predicted probabilities of 
high (i.e. college-bound) secondary schooling for children of parents with high and low 
education in scenarios of early and late kindergarten enrollment. The impact of kindergarten 
enrollment is thus compared in a difference-in-differences type approach.  
 
3.   Results 
  We do not present the coefficient estimates of the multinomial logit model to save 
space (they are available upon request). The vector of interaction terms generated jointly 
highly significant coefficient estimates. A Hausman test rejected the hypothesis of correlation 
                                                 
2 The empirical model controls for 8 indicators of paternal and maternal education, 20 
indicators of paternal and maternal occupational position, age of father and age of mother, 4 
indicators of religion, 3 indicators of the number of siblings, 6 region indicators, population 
density and youth unemployment in the area of residence, sex of the child, an indicator of the 
kindergarten regime (average age or share of 4- or 5-years-olds), and 8 interaction terms of  
5 
 
in unobserved heterogeneities across outcomes. Table 3 presents the predicted probabilities of 
attending the highest secondary school track conditional on parental education and on the 
cantonal kindergarten regime. Panel A presents the results when we use the average observed 
age of kindergarten children as an indicator for the kindergarten regime, Panels B and C show 
the results when we apply the shares of 4- and 5-years-olds in kindergarten, respectively.
3 The 
results are clear and robust across all three panels: the earlier children attend kindergarten 
(and the higher the share of 4- and 5 years olds in kindergarten) the lower is the impact of 
parental education on child educational attainment. The p-values in columns 11, 12, 14 and 15 
indicate that relative intergenerational mobility is significantly higher (at least at the 10 
percent level) when children enroll in kindergarten early. While the same effect also obtains 
for absolute differences in the conditional probability of attaining high levels of schooling, the 
absolute differences are not always statistically significant.  
 
4.   Conclusion 
  This study tests whether the extent of intergenerational correlation in educational 
outcomes varies depending on the kindergarten regime in place. We find evidence for a 
beneficial effect of early enrollment in kindergarten. While the empirical evidence is new to 
the literature the mechanism is similar to that observed for the age of school entry: the earlier 
children participate in kindergarten activities the less important is parental background. 
Therefore child endowment differences, which are connected to parental education, are 
balanced more successfully and the impact of parental background on educational attainment 
is reduced by early rather than late kindergarten enrollment.  
                                                                                                                                                          
the kindergarten regime and parental education plus a constant. 
3 Since some cantons require 6-years-olds to attend school the share of 6-years-olds in 
kindergarten is not used as an indicator.  
6 
 
References 
 
Bauer, Philipp and Regina T. Riphahn, 2007, Heterogeneity in the intergenerational 
transmission of educational attainment: evidence from Switzerland on natives and 
second generation immigrants, Journal of Population Economics 20(1), 121-148. 
 
Björklund, Anders, Mikael Lindahl, and Erik Plug, 2006, The Origins of Intergenerational 
Associations: Lessons from Swedish Adoption Data, Quarterly Journal of Economics 
121(3), 999-1028. 
 
Currie, Janet, 2001, Early Childhood Education Programs, Journal of Economic Perspectives 
15(2), 213-238. 
 
Deming, David and Susan Dynarski, 2008, The Lengthening of Childhood, Journal of 
Economic Perspectives 22(3), 71-92. 
 
Elder, Todd E. and Darren H. Lubotsky, 2009, Kindergarten Entrance Age and Children's 
Achievement. Impacts of State Policies, Family Background, and Peers, Journal of 
Human Resources 44(3), 641-683. 
 
Hanushek, Eric A. and Ludger Wößmann, 2006, Does Educational Tracking Affect 
Performance and Inequality? Differences-in-Differences Evidence Across Countries, 
Economic Journal 116(510), C63-C76.  
7 
 
Table 1  Cantonal kindergarten characteristics 
 
Variable Mean Std.Dev. Min Max
Share of 4-years-olds in Kindergarten 0.152 0.228 0.000 0.825
Share of 5-years-olds in Kindergarten 0.601 0.261 0.037 0.910
Share of 6-years-olds in Kindergarten 0.683 0.231 0.090 0.957
Average Age in Kindergarten 5.407 0.474 4.018 6.027  
 
Source: Information on kindergarten regimes at the level of (N=26) cantons 1987-1989 is 
provided by the Swiss Statistical Office, Section School and Vocational Education. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Table 2   Observed probability of child high secondary education by paternal education 
     and cantonal age at school entry 
 
pp
12 3 4
1 All 0.115 (0.004) 0.633 (0.006) 0.518 (0.007) 5.524
2 Average Age < 1 Std.Dev. 0.290 (0.013) 0.770 (0.011) 0.481 (0.017) 0.441 2.659 (1.202) 0.000
3 Average Age > 1 Std.Dev. 0.063 (0.011) 0.691 (0.037) 0.628 (0.039) 10.983 (0.287)
4 Early Age Cantons 0.176 (0.007) 0.681 (0.008) 0.505 (0.010) 0.502 3.873 (0.876) 0.000
5 Late Age Cantons  0.069 (0.004) 0.570 (0.009) 0.501 (0.010) 8.237 (0.415)
P(high | low) P (high | high) Absolute Diff. Relative Diff.
 
Note: P (high | low) describes the probability that children of fathers with low education 
pursue the high secondary track, P (high | high) provides the same probability for children of 
highly educated fathers. Row 1 column 1 uses 7,680 observations, row 1 column 2 is based on 
6,651 observations. The entries in rows 2-4 are based on subsamples thereof. Standard errors 
are in parentheses. The p-values apply to one sided tests of the null hypotheses that the 
differences of the absolute and relative differences in columns 3 and 4 are larger in early than 
in the late kindergarten enrollment regimes. 
  
8 
 
Table 3  Predicted probability of child high secondary education by parental education and cantonal enrolment regime 
 
123456789 1 0 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 15
P (high 
| low)
P (high 
| mid)
P (high 
| high)
= 3 - 1 p-value 
of diff. 
a-b 
and b-
p-value 
of diff. 
a-c
= 3 - 2 p-value 
of diff. 
a-b 
and b-
p-value 
of diff. 
a-c
= 3 / 1 p-value 
of diff. 
a-b 
and b-
p-value 
of diff. 
a-c
= 3 / 2 p-value 
of diff. 
a-b 
and b-
p-value 
of diff. 
a-c
A: Effect of Average Kindergarten Age
a Average age at mean - 1 Std.Dev. 0.118 0.261 0.629 0.512 0.368 5.354 2.412
(0.082) (0.14) (0.169) (0.108) 0.219 (0.066) 0.063 (2.736) 0.047 (0.842) 0.041
b Average age at mean 0.081 0.212 0.614 0.533 0.271 0.402 0.090 7.561 0.046 2.898 0.041
(0.06) (0.123) (0.17) (0.123) 0.349 (0.076) 0.125 (3.999) 0.045 (1.103) 0.041
c Average age at mean + 1 Std.Dev. 0.055 0.169 0.597 0.542 0.427 10.836 3.524
(0.043) (0.107) (0.171) (0.137) (0.088) (5.85) (1.439)
B: Effect of Share of 4 Years Olds
a Average - 1 Std.Dev. 0.071 0.198 0.612 0.541 0.414 8.667 3.090
(0.056) (0.123) (0.171) (0.128) 0.134 (0.079) 0.026 (4.852) 0.074 (1.255) 0.076
b Average share of 4 years olds 0.084 0.216 0.612 0.528 0.100 0.397 0.022 7.265 0.071 2.837 0.073
 (0.066) (0.13) (0.172) (0.122) 0.092 (0.075) 0.019 (3.936) 0.069 (1.094) 0.071
c Average + 1 Std.Dev. 0.109 0.244 0.612 0.503 0.367 5.612 2.503
(0.081) (0.14) (0.173) (0.112) (0.07) (2.885) (0.891)
C: Effect of Share of 5 Years Olds
a Average - 1 Std.Dev. 0.064 0.188 0.584 0.520 0.396 9.092 3.105
(0.057) (0.128) (0.182) (0.139) 0.434 (0.087) 0.333 (5.331) 0.080 (1.284) 0.077
b Average share of 5 years olds 0.086 0.214 0.602 0.516 0.383 0.388 0.306 6.963 0.076 2.811 0.074
 (0.073) (0.138) (0.181) (0.127) 0.338 (0.08) 0.281 (3.964) 0.073 (1.128) 0.069
c Average + 1 Std.Dev. 0.115 0.243 0.620 0.505 0.378 5.392 2.555
(0.091) (0.148) (0.18) (0.114) (0.075) (2.996) (0.999)
Predicted Probability Absolute Differences Relative Differences
 
Note: P (high | low) describes the probability that children of fathers with low education pursue the high secondary track, the other probabilities similarly 
condition on fathers' education. In parentheses are bootstrapped standard errors, the p-values (in columns 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15) apply to one-sided tests 
of the null hypotheses that the differences (presented in columns 4, 7, 10 and 13) are larger in the early than in the late kindergarten enrollment regimes. 
Bold faced font indicates p-values at 10 percent or below. 
Source: Own calculations based on Census 2000 and on a survey of cantonal education departments. 

Does Educational Tracking Affect Performance and Inequality? Differences-in-Differences Evidence Across Countries,

Early Childhood Education Programs,

Heterogeneity in the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment: evidence from Switzerland on natives and second generation immigrants,

Kindergarten Entrance Age and Children's Achievement. Impacts of State Policies, Family Background, and Peers,

The Lengthening of Childhood,

The Origins of Intergenerational Associations: Lessons from Swedish Adoption Data,

Kindergarten Enrollment and the Intergenerational Transmission of Education

Kindergarten Enrollment and the Intergenerational Transmission of Education

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Research Papers in Economics