<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The growing number of studies stresses the importance of social investment at an early age by showing that social investment at this period has the highest returns in human capital. The main instrument of social investment at an early age is high quality early childhood education and care services. The aim of the research was to identify whether the first signs of social investment return could be observed in Latvia, since statistic data showed that there was an expansion of early childhood education and care services over the last decades, especially for children until obligatory pre-school age. Research results showed that positive connection could be observed between pre-school attendance rate and fertility rate, female and overall employment rate, average earning, etc. However, no connection could be observed when it came to education outcomes in the short term. The author recommends conducting more research regarding service quality and investment return in the future.</p></abstract>

The growing number of studies stresses the importance of social investment at an early age by showing that social investment at this period has the highest returns in human capital. The main instrument of social investment at an early age is high quality early childhood education and care services. The aim of the research was to identify whether the first signs of social investment return could be observed in Latvia, since statistic data showed that there was an expansion of early childhood education and care services over the last decades, especially for children until obligatory pre-school age. Research results showed that positive connection could be observed between pre-school attendance rate and fertility rate, female and overall employment rate, average earning, etc. However, no connection could be observed when it came to education outcomes in the short term. The author recommends conducting more research regarding service quality and investment return in the future.

The Effect of Early Childhood Education and Care Services in Latvia

Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"The Effect of Early Childhood Education and Care Services in Latvia"}

The growing number of studies stresses the importance of social investment at an early age by showing that social investment at this period has the highest...

The Effect of Early Childhood Education and Care Services in Latvia

Published Online: Feb 13, 2020

Page range: 17 - 26

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jtes-2019-0014

Keywords
child development, early childhood education and care services, social investment return, women employment

© 2019 Katrīne Kūkoja, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Effect of Early Childhood Education and Care Services in Latvia

Published Online: Feb 13, 2020

Page range: 17 - 26

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jtes-2019-0014

Keywordschild development, early childhood education and care services, social investment return, women employment

© 2019 Katrīne Kūkoja, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
child development, early childhood education and care services, social investment return, women employment