The role of grandparenting in early childcare and child outcomes

This paper examines the short and medium term impact of early childcareprovision by grandparents and formal care settings on child cognitive outcomes,using data from the Millennium Cohort Study (UK). Compared with children placedin formal childcare, children cared for by their grandparents are better at namingobjects, but perform worse on tests of basic concep t development and non-verbalreasoning. These results mask strong heterogeneities. On the one hand, the positiveassociation between grandparental care and child outcomes is stronger for childrenfrom more advantaged households; on the other, the negative association is onlysignificant for those from more disadvantaged households. The results of OLSestimations used for our analysis are confirmed using panel methods and aninstrumental variable approach.