幼儿园增建与儿童认知能力发展:理论模型与经验证据

Construction of More Kindergartens and Children's Cognitive Performance:Theory and Empirical Evidence

本文构建了一个理论模型分析幼儿园增建如何影响家庭教育决策和儿童未来人力资本发展。基于手工整理的幼儿园数量和中国家庭追踪调查数据,经验研究发现,我国2010年实施的幼儿园增建政策平均使6—16岁儿童数学和语文成绩提高约0.05—0.06个标准差。机制分析发现,接受幼儿园教育的儿童3—5岁的认知和非认知能力更高,未来也会获得更多的教育投入,显示出更明显的能力的动态互补性。保守估计我国2010年幼儿园增建政策的收益成本之比约为5.06。

We develop a theoretical model to analyze how the construction of more kindergartens affects families'decisions on their children's enrollment and children's development of future human capital.Leveraging on manually collected data and CFPS(China Family Panel Studies),we find that a nationwide kindergarten construction project in China results in an increase of 0.05-0.06o in mathematics and Chinese scores for children aged 6-16.This can be attributed to the promoted cognitive and non-cognitive skills developed between ages 3 and 5 and an increased educational resources acquired in subsequent years.Additionally,attending kindergarten demonstrates a stronger correlation between early and later skill development.The benefit-cost ratio for this construction project is approximately 5.06.