The Impact of Early Childhood Education in the Transition to Adulthood: Findings from a Portuguese Study

Abstract

The main goal of this study was to examine the impact of early childhood education on the lives of Portuguese young adults.
The data were drawn from a longitudinal study in which a large community sample of boys and girls were followed from childhood until their late twenties.
Participants who had attended pre-school were compared with their peers who did not (control group) on several adult life outcomes.
As young adults, the participants who attended programs of early childhood education reported higher school attainment, regardless of the criterion used for this purpose: less drop out and less grade retention, more school years completed, more college degrees obtained and more participation in cultural activities. However, no differences were found between the two groups in measures of employment, namely professional status, job satisfaction and time length between school leaving and the first job. Similarly, no significant differences were reported in measures of mental health problems, number of friends, positive life experiences and general wellbeing. Surprisingly, those who benefitted from pre-school education reported more delinquency and substance use than those in the control group.
However, the significant differences between the two groups disappeared when confounding variables such as parent’s education level, sibling’s size or childhood negative experiences were statistically accounted for. These findings provide only limited support to the claim that large scale benefits of early childhood education persist into adulthood.