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A randomized controlled trial on the effect of administrative burden and information costs on social inequalities in early childcare access in France

Nature Human Behaviour (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Low-socioeconomic-status (SES) and immigrant households benefit the most from attending high-quality early childcare, but they often access it the least. This study tests whether cognitive and behavioural barriers contribute to these access gaps in the French context, where disparities in early childcare enrolment are large. Through a multi-arm experiment, we evaluate the effectiveness of informational interventions and personalized support to enhance early childcare application and access in a sample of 1,849 households. Results revealed that the information-only treatment had minimal impact, while adding personalized support to alleviate administrative burdens significantly bridged the SES and migration gaps in early childcare applications. However, despite substantial increases in application rates, we found limited impacts on access rates for low-SES and immigrant households. Our research underscores the need for integrated strategies to promote equal opportunities in early childhood education by identifying key obstacles to early childcare access for these households.

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Fig. 1: Study design and timeline.
Fig. 2: The intention-to-action gap in early childcare application and access within the control group (N = 623) by SES and migration background.
Fig. 3: Heterogeneous effects by SES and migration background of the information + support treatment on early childcare application and access - ITT and ATT.
Fig. 4: Heterogeneous effects by SES and migration background of the information + support treatment on daycare application and access - ITT and ATT.
Fig. 5: Heterogeneous effects of the information + support treatment on early childcare application and access for subgroups experiencing high information costs.
Fig. 6: Heterogeneous effects of the information + support treatment on early childcare application and access for subgroups experiencing high psychological costs.

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Data availability

This study used primary outcome data collected through surveys. The anonymized data are available for replication on OSF at https://osf.io/rh7eb/?view_only=3d791c3be9f8464a83bdb7df9343e5ae (ref. 89).

Code availability

The code to replicate this Article, including analysis and tables, is publicly available on OSF at https://osf.io/rh7eb/?view_only=3d791c3be9f8464a83bdb7df9343e5ae (ref. 89). It can also be accessed through GitHub at https://github.com/LaudineC/RCT_RR_NHB.git.

All analyses were performed using R 4.3.0 and R studio 2023.12.1.

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Acknowledgements

L.C. acknowledges support from multiple funders of the experiment: the Mustela foundation, the Ardian foundation, the Caisse nationale des allocations familiales (Cnaf), and the Sciences Po Advisory Board. L.C. has also benefited from the support provided by the ANR and the French government under the Investments for the Future programme LABEX (ANR-11-LABX-0091, ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02) and the Idex University of Paris (ANR-18-IDEX-0001). This study was also supported by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-21-CE28-0009; EUR FrontCog; ANR-17-EURE-0017 and ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. L.C. also acknowledges the support of the numerous research assistants who contributed to data collection and experiment implementation: M. Archer, K. Azevedo, M. Badulfe, A. Bedel, H. Benderer, N. B. Taleb, A.-C. Caseau, S. Chaoui, N. Cheikh, A. Demars, L. Deschamps, C. Dureau, A. Eychenne, A. Gachassin, M. Gautier, C. Gautier, H. Girard, M. Ghriani, S. Guissani, E. Lacombe, A. Maigre, Z. Makine, C.-E. Malphettes, E. Morin, L. Moracchini, T. Morand, D. Maureau, S. M. Ndueguene, J. Patoureaux, C. Poinsot, L. Rémy, E. Angeon-Roger, E. Sahal, C. Tegbe and C. Voisin.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CRIS, Department of Sociology, Sciences Po, Paris, France

    Laudine Carbuccia & Carlo Barone

  2. Institut Jean Nicod, Département d’études cognitives, Ecole normale supérieure, Université PSL, EHESS, CNRS, Paris, France

    Laudine Carbuccia & Coralie Chevallier

  3. LIEPP, Sciences Po, Paris, France

    Laudine Carbuccia & Carlo Barone

  4. Department of Statistics, Research and Studies, National Family Allowance Fund (Cnaf), Paris, France

    Arthur Heim

  5. Labour and Public Economics Research Unit, Paris School of Economics (EHESS), Paris, France

    Arthur Heim

Authors
  1. Laudine Carbuccia
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  4. Coralie Chevallier
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Contributions

L.C., C.B. and C.C. designed the project. L.C. created the content of the intervention, including videos, a website, and support. L.C. secured funding, recruited participants, conducted the data collection of all waves, implemented the experiment, and supervised the team of research assistants. L.C. and A.H. analysed the data. L.C. wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors critically reviewed the paper and contributed to its writing and revision.

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Correspondence to Laudine Carbuccia.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests. A.H. is employed by the Caisse nationale des allocations familiales (Cnaf, French national family allowances fund). While the Cnaf provided partial funding for the RCT, they did not influence the study design, data analysis, interpretation of the results, or the decision to publish.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Post-Lasso estimates of the main outcomes.

Comparison of intent-to-treat effects across basic, post-double-lasso, and double debiased estimation methods. N = 1453. Treatment effects (percentage points) with 95% confidence intervals on the main outcomes across three experimental contrasts. Basic models include treatment dummy and block fixed effects only. Post-double-lasso uses machine learning variable selection with 5-fold cross-validation from both outcome and treatment models. Double-debiased estimators use cross-fitted orthogonalization to reduce regularization bias. All methods employ cluster-robust standard errors and inverse propensity score weights. P-values are based on two-sided t-tests.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Heterogeneous effects of the information-only treatment on early childcare applications and access.

Heterogeneous effects by SES and migration background of the information-only treatment on early childcare application and access - Intention-to-treat estimates (ITT) and Average Treatment effects on the Treated (ATT). N = 1453. The estimates are derived from ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses of the two main outcomes—application and access—using dummy variables representing the group variable of interest (SES or migration background) and block fixed effects. P-values are derived from two-sided t-tests. Standard errors are cluster-heteroskedasticity robust adjusted at the block level. Points indicate point estimates, and the error bars indicate pointwise 95% CI. Boxes around estimates indicate simultaneous 95% CI adjusted for multiple hypotheses testing of pairwise comparisons and subgroups using the Westfall-Young methods.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Heterogeneous effects of the information-only treatment on daycare applications and access.

Heterogeneous effects by SES and migration background of the information-only treatment on daycare application and access - Intention-to-treat estimates (ITT) and Average Treatment effects on the Treated (ATT). N = 1453. The estimates are derived from ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses of the two main outcomes—application, and access—using dummy variables representing the group variable of interest (SES or migration background) and block fixed effects. P-values are derived from two-sided t-tests. Standard errors are cluster-heteroskedasticity robust adjusted at the block level. Points indicate point estimates, and the error bars indicate pointwise 95% CI. Boxes around estimates indicate simultaneous 95% CI adjusted for multiple hypotheses testing of pairwise comparisons and subgroups using the Westfall-Young methods.

Extended Data Table 1 Differential attrition by treatment arms
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Average treatment effect on the treated on the main outcomes with first stage
Full size table
Extended Data Table 3 Heterogeneous effects by SES and migration background of the information + support treatment on early childcare application and access
Full size table
Extended Data Table 4 Heterogeneous effects by SES and migration background of the information + support treatment on daycare application and access
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Extended Data Table 5 Heterogeneous effects by SES of the information + support treatment on mothers’ probability to reduce their activity
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Extended Data Table 6 Heterogeneous effects by interacting SES with activity status at baseline of the information + support treatment on daycare application and access
Full size table

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Carbuccia, L., Heim, A., Barone, C. et al. A randomized controlled trial on the effect of administrative burden and information costs on social inequalities in early childcare access in France. Nat Hum Behav (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02293-4

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