The authors acknowledge the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, which is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Health, NIH/NIEHS (Grant N01-ES-85433), NIH/NINDS (Grant 1 UO1 NS 047537-01), and the Norwegian Research Council/FUGE (Grant 151918/S10). The authors express their deep appreciation for Stuart Hauser, MD, PhD, a cherished mentor and friend who made this international collaboration possible. Three of the authors (HDZ, ED, and COT) received support from the Norwegian Research Council. The authors acknowledge feedback from Drs. Burchinal and McCartney, and from three anonymous reviewers.
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Empirical Article
Little Evidence That Time in Child Care Causes Externalizing Problems During Early Childhood in Norway
Article first published online: 11 JAN 2013
DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12040
© 2013 The Authors. Child Development © 2013 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
Additional Information
How to Cite
Zachrisson, H. D., Dearing, E., Lekhal, R. and Toppelberg, C. O. (2013), Little Evidence That Time in Child Care Causes Externalizing Problems During Early Childhood in Norway. Child Development. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12040
Publication History
- Article first published online: 11 JAN 2013
Funded by
- Norwegian Ministry of Health
- NIH/NIEHS. Grant Number: N01-ES-85433
- NIH/NINDS. Grant Number: 1 UO1 NS 047537-01
- Norwegian Research Council/FUGE. Grant Number: 151918/S10
Associations between maternal reports of hours in child care and children's externalizing problems at 18 and 36 months of age were examined in a population-based Norwegian sample (n = 75,271). Within a sociopolitical context of homogenously high-quality child care, there was little evidence that high quantity of care causes externalizing problems. Using conventional approaches to handling selection bias and listwise deletion for substantial attrition in this sample, more hours in care predicted higher problem levels, yet with small effect sizes. The finding, however, was not robust to using multiple imputation for missing values. Moreover, when sibling and individual fixed-effects models for handling selection bias were used, no relation between hours and problems was evident.