Social origins, shared book reading and language skills in early childhood: Evidence from an information experiment

Shared book reading between parents and children is often regarded as a significant mediator ofsocial inequalities in early skill development processes. We argue that socially biased gapsbetween parents in access to information about the benefits of this activity for school successcontribute to inequalities between children in access to this activity and in their languagedevelopment. We test this hypothesis with a large-scale field experiment assessing the causalimpact of an information intervention targeting parents of pre-schoolers on both the frequency ofshared book reading and the receptive vocabulary of children. Results indicate that low-educatedparents are more reactive to this information intervention, with significant effects on the languagedevelopment of their children. We conclude that information barriers on the potential of informallearning activities at home contribute to social inequalities in early childhood, and that removingthese barriers is a cost-effective way to reduce these inequalities