School entry cutoff policies establish the minimum age required to start school at a given date, determining whether a child is in a classroom with younger or older peers, which can affect their development. Existing research, particularly from high-income countries, shows that younger students face disadvantages in several areas, but little is known about the effects in low- and middle-income countries and for preschool children. We leverage the discontinuity created by government-imposed school entry cutoffs to measure the impact of late enrollment on child nutrition and early childhood development outcomes. Using data from Peru’s Demographic and Health Surveys and a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we show that the laxly enforced preschool entry age policies significantly increase the probability of late enrollment, but on average they do not affect child health or early childhood development. Nonetheless, we find that these insignificant effects hide differential impacts for boys and girls, and poor children.

Authors:
José María Rentería, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Peru
Chris Boyd, Towson University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Rentería is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Lima, Peru.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmrenteriav

See this presentation on the full schedule – Wednesday Schedule

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