Access to Head Start and Maternal Labor Supply: Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidence

Abstract

We explore how access to Head Start affects maternal labor supply. By relaxing childcare constraints, public preschools like Head Start might lead mothers to reallocate time among employment, childcare, and other activities. Using the 1990s enrollment and funding expansions and the 2002 Head Start Impact Study randomized controlled trial, we show that Head Start increases short-run employment and wage earnings of single mothers without reducing quality parent-child interactions. Even before including long-run benefits to children, the short-run benefit to single mothers and the government is $0.93 per dollar. Head Start is a family-level treatment with impacts beyond children.