Day care = better standardized test scores

BOGOTA, June 20 (UPI) -- Formal preschool program or licensed daycare is better for a child's cognitive development than care by a relative or friend, a Colombian researcher says.

Raquel Bernal of the Universidad de los Andes in Columbia and Michael Keane of the University of New South Wales in Sydney took advantage of changes made in the 1990s to U.S. welfare laws that encouraged single mothers to enter the workforce.

Before the changes, about 59 percent of single U.S. mothers worked outside the home, but by 2001, that number increased to 72 percent, the researchers said. The researchers compared test scores for U.S. children ages 3-6 born shortly before and after the law change.

The study, scheduled to be published in the July issue of the Journal of Labor Economics, found overall that use of childcare reduces a child's test scores significantly, but when the researchers divided the children into those who received daycare vs. care by a relative or friend, they found that the reduction in tests scores was driven solely by children cared for by relatives.

Formal care -- formal preschool program or a licensed day-care center -- was found to have no adverse effect on test scores, Bernal said.