Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
福禄贝尔的恩赐：幼儿园运动如何改变了移民家庭
Froebel’s gifts: how the kindergarten movement changed the immigrant family
摘要
Nineteenth-century social reformers promoted the establishment of kindergartens to facilitate the integration of immigrant children in the U.S. society. Exploiting newly collected data on historical kindergarten statistics, we evaluate the impact that the roll-out of the first kindergartens in U.S. cities had on immigrant families. We find that immigrant women exposed to kindergartens experienced a significant reduction in fertility. Their offspring were more likely to attend school, less likely to work during adolescence, and went on to have fewer children as adults. Kindergarten exposure also helped children of non-English-speaking households to acquire English proficiency, thereby illustrating the importance of kindergartens in the social integration of immigrant families. The observed fertility decline, in response to higher returns to education, is consistent with a child quantity–quality tradeoff.
中文摘要
十九世纪的社会改革者倡导建立幼儿园，以促进移民儿童融入美国社会。利用新收集的历史幼儿园统计数据，我们评估了美国城市首批幼儿园的推广对移民家庭的影响。研究发现，接触幼儿园的移民女性生育率显著下降。她们的子女更有可能入学，青少年时期工作的可能性较低，并且成年后生育的子女数量更少。幼儿园的接触还帮助了来自非英语家庭的儿童掌握英语能力，从而凸显了幼儿园在移民家庭社会融合中的重要性。观察到的生育率下降，是对教育回报提高的响应，与子女数量与质量权衡相一致。