Norwegians who came from poor families and attended subsidised, universally available day care subsequently gained an average of $1.31 in income as adults for every government dollar spent on their child care; but upper-class people who attended the same child care suffered a $1.15 comparable loss in income, say Tarjei Havnes of the University of Oslo and Magne Mogstad of the University of Chicago. Subsidised care is apparently of lower quality than that usually available to wealthy families, but many well-off families use it anyway in order to save money.

(Source: Journal of Public Economics)

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, August 31st, 2015

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