Away from Home but Still Like Home: The Impact of Home-Based Childcare Centers on Toddlers’ Language Development

The current literature indicates that the childcare center environment greatly influences toddlers’ development. Expanding on the existing studies, this article examines the effects of a specific type of childcare center-home-based childcare centers-on toddlers’ language development using the case of South Korea. Considering that toddlers tend to attend childcare centers near their homes and that the distribution of childcare centers varies by region, this study exploits the ratio of home-based childcare centers to the total population of toddlers by region as an instrumental variable. The results demonstrate that home-based childcare centers positively affect toddlers’ language development as measured with the Receptive–Expressive Vocabulary Test. These effects are heterogeneous according to gender, mother's employment status, birth order, and household income. Our findings suggest that sponsoring home-based childcare centers and supporting household access to childcare centers may be effective for improving children's development and supporting new families in a modern society where dual-income couples are becoming more common and the birth rate is low.