New research has found a clear link between enrolment in early learning and a decline in risky behaviour later in life.
University of Tokyo researchers say that preschool expansion in Japan in the 1960s had clearly led to significant reductions in risky behaviours amongst teenagers.
This included declines in juvenile violent arrests and teenage pregnancy.
“The findings suggest that improved noncognitive skills played a key role in mitigating risky behaviours, highlighting the lasting benefits of early-education policies,” the study report said.
“The team’s findings are particularly significant because they come from a universal program that served all children regardless of socioeconomic background.
“Most previous evidence on the crime-reducing effects of early childhood education comes from small-scale targeted programs for disadvantaged children in the United States.”
Professor Shintaro Yamaguchi from the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Economics said the objective of the research was to gauge if non-cognitive skills learned at age three would produce persistent benefits over time.
“A key challenge was ensuring that the effects we observed were genuinely caused by Japan’s preschool reform and not by other factors,” he said.
“To address this, we used a simple but effective approach: We examined adult crime and pregnancy rates before and after the reforms. If preschool had a real impact, the effects should appear only in children who attended, not in older individuals who missed out on the reform.”
The study found that the preschool rollout program did not increase high school or college enrolment rates.
This suggested that the reduction in risky behaviours was probably directly linked to noncognitive skills learnt in early childhood rather than being a result of additional schooling.
The full report is on the University of Tokyo website
