Early Childhood Intervention for the Poor: Long Term Outcomes

Pamela Jervis; Lina Cardona-Sosa; Michele Giannola; Sally Grantham-McGregor; Costas Meghir; Marta Rubio-Codina; Monimalika Day; Orazio Attanasio

doi:10.3386/w32165

Early Childhood Intervention for the Poor: Long Term Outcomes

Pamela Jervis, Lina Cardona-Sosa, Michele Giannola, Sally Grantham-McGregor, Costas Meghir, Marta Rubio-Codina, Monimalika Day & Orazio Attanasio

Working Paper 32165

DOI 10.3386/w32165

Issue Date February 2024

Revision Date January 2026

Early childhood interventions aim to improve parenting, children’s skills, thus reducing poverty. While short-term effects are well documented, evidence on longer-term impacts in low-income countries remains limited. We present results of a medium-term follow-up to a scalable home-visiting randomized intervention in India that previously improved children’s cognitive and language development. After 4.5 years (average child age 7.5 years), significant impacts persisted in early numeracy (0.33 SD, p=0.007) and marginally in literacy (0.27 SD, p=0.064), driven by the most disadvantaged children. IQ differences faded. Parental investment in education and participation in stimulating activities with the child remained increased.

The trial was implemented with extreme care and attention by Pratham, under the leadership of Rukmini Banerji. Swarnaprava Pradhan and Puspanjali Parida provided excellent implementation in the field. Karishma Vas and Pankhuri Mishra were instrumental in achieving the follow up. The present follow-up study was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Advanced Grant 695300 - HKADeC - ERC-2015-AdG/ERC-2015- AdG, PI Attanasio) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (Grants ES/M010147/1 and ES/K010700/1, PI O. Attanasio). The original trial was funded by a personal donation from Mr. Rushton Turner, obtained following a presentation and a discussion with Costas Meghir, which was turned into a grant (PI’s O. Attanasio, B. Augsburg, S. Grantham McGregor, C. Meghir and M. Rubio-Codina). Funding was also provided by the Waterloo Foundation (Grant No 969-1310, PI’s O. Attanasio, B. Augsburg and M. Rubio-Codina) and by the National Institutes of Health, USA (Grant R01 HD 72120, PI C. Meghir). Britta Augsburg was one of the initiators of the original experiment. Alison Andrew and Britta Augsburg worked on the design and implementation of the original experiment and we thank them for their contribution. P. Jervis gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Institute for Research in Market Imperfections and Public Policy MIPP (ICS13 002 ANID) and the Center for Research in Inclusive Education, Chile (SCIA ANID CIE160009). ISRCTN89476603, AEARCTR-0000169, AEARCTR-0005444. The study was reviewed and approved by the Research Ethics Committees of University College London (UCL), UK (IRB Approval Number 2168/001) and of the Institute for Financial Management and Research, India (IRB00007107). The follow-up has also obtained ethical approval from the UCL Research Ethics Committee (IRB Approval Number 16727/001) and the registry trial can be found at https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/5444. The children’s caregivers provided written informed consent before study participation. The views here presented do not represent the Inter-American Development Bank, its board of directors, the countries they represent, or the National Bureau of Economic Research.
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Pamela Jervis, Lina Cardona-Sosa, Michele Giannola, Sally Grantham-McGregor, Costas Meghir, Marta Rubio-Codina, Monimalika Day, and Orazio Attanasio, "Early Childhood Intervention for the Poor: Long Term Outcomes," NBER Working Paper 32165 (2024), https://doi.org/10.3386/w32165.

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- randomized controlled trials registry entry
- February 21, 2024

Early Childhood Intervention for the Poor: Long Term Outcomes

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