Parental Impact on Filipino Early Childhood Development*

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The initial years of life are increasingly emphasized as critical for health and productivity over the life cycle and increasing efforts have been made to improve early childhood development (ECD). Yet little is known about determinants of ECD in developing countries, including the importance of family background. The parent grant on "Filipino Early Childhood Development: Longitudinal Analysis" for this FIRCA application attempts to fill part of this knowledge gap through: (1) collection by the Office of Population Studies (OPS) in the Philippines of longitudinal data on children aged 0-4 and their families, ECD services providers, and communities in 2001 prior to initiation of a new ECD program with three rounds of follow-up data; (2) analyses of impacts of the ECD program; and (3) capacity-building through collaboration. This FIRCA application is for new analyses of effects of parental background on ECD and on maternal health care, building on data collected, knowledge gained, and collaborative research relations developed under the parent grant -- but going beyond the parent project. The specific FIRCA topics have been developed by OPS staff based on their expertise and research interests and are grounded in substantial familiarity with the current state of and gaps in understanding of child and maternal health in the Philippines from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The construct of technological/biological "production functions" for indicators of ECD (or of maternal health) dependent directly on inputs chosen by the parents and on inputs exogenous to parents will be used to organize empirical investigation of direct impacts of parental background on ECD (or on maternal health). Exploration of alternative specifications will provide essential insights into how important are strong assumptions used in most of the literature for correct estimation and interpretation of causal impacts of family background on.ECD and maternal health. Reduced-form demand relations that incorporate both direct and indirect effects of family background will provide further insight on how family resources and behaviors affect ECD and maternal health. This FIRCA research, centered at OPS with OPS staff leading the studies, will enrich our knowledge of critical effects of parental background on ECD and maternal health care in a low-income context, as well as permit further analytical capacity-building at OPS.