Population aging results not only from people living longer but also from steadily declining fertility rates. Countries worldwide are tackling this issue through strategies that include structural reforms of pension systems or initiatives aimed at modifying young people’s preferences with economic incentives to start families, as seen in South Korea.
This publication compiles the experiences and lessons learned from the Early Childhood Development Innovation Fund (ECD Fund), an alliance between the IDB and several donors (Fundación FEMSA, Van Leer Foundation, Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal Foundation, Porticus, and Open Society Foundations) that supports innovative early childhood development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Safe water and sanitation are essential for sustainable development, yet over 2 billion people worldwide still lack access to safely managed drinking water, and 3.5 billion lack safe sanitation. These gaps are not just inconvenient; they are dangerous.
Reflections from the first IDB regional forum IDB Cares: Connecting Care: Learning between governments
Smart spending in education is an approach that seeks to generate greater impact on learning.
School feeding programs not only nourish millions of children across Latin America and the Caribbean; they also ease household budgets and strengthen the resilience of food systems.
Since 2007, the Ecuadorian government has required teacher candidates to pass cognitive and knowledge tests before they are allowed to participate in merit-based competitions for tenured positions. We evaluate this policy by linking administrative teacher information to data from an experimental study that randomly assigned nearly 13,000 children to their teachers. We find that test-screened tenured teachers had a significant effect of at least 10.5 percent of a SD on language learning outcomes.
Children need more than basic care from the day they are born. Good nutrition, a safe environment, and opportunities for stimulation are key for the brain to develop and reach its full potential. But what happens when families lack the resources to provide these conditions?
We estimate sibling correlations in schooling (i.e., the fraction of inequality in educational outcomes that can be attributed to factors shared by siblings) for 94 countries, accounting for 85% of the world population. With this new database, we document several findings. On average, at least 51% of the inequality in schooling can be explained by shared family background. There are large regional differences, with North America and South Asia displaying the lowest and highest sibling correlations, respectively. There is important heterogeneity within some regions.
We estimate sibling correlations in schooling (i.e., the fraction of inequality in educational outcomes that can be attributed to factors shared by siblings) for 94 countries, accounting for 85% of the world population. With this new database, we document several findings. On average, at least 51% of the inequality in schooling can be explained by shared family background. There are large regional differences, with North America and South Asia displaying the lowest and highest sibling correlations, respectively. There is important heterogeneity within some regions.