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When the COVID-19COVID-19 pandemic struck, our research group set out to understand the effect of isolation on child developmentChild development with the help of National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID award #2030106. Our major results were unexpected. We found plenty of negative effects of pandemic-era policy on familiesFamilies, but they were driven primarily by loss of childcare support, rather than isolation or COVID itself. These results were repeated over and over across many large, national datasets, including both surveys and passive data. These results are particularly striking in the context of a pandemic where children were at low risk of illness and had minimal impact on disease transmission. That is, the closure of schools and daycares came at enormous societal cost and with little benefit. In the future, policymakers should consider this cost-benefit ratio more carefully. In the event the cost-ratio benefit still motivates closure of schools and daycares, proactive measures should be taken to address the known harms.

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Evaluating the Costs of School and Daycare Closure on Family Well-Being and Child Development During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  • 章节

  • 发表日期：

    2026年

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  • Joshua K. Hartshorne,
  • Mengguo Jing

摘要

When the COVID-19COVID-19 pandemic struck, our research group set out to understand the effect of isolation on child developmentChild development with the help of National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID award #2030106. Our major results were unexpected. We found plenty of negative effects of pandemic-era policy on familiesFamilies, but they were driven primarily by loss of childcare support, rather than isolation or COVID itself. These results were repeated over and over across many large, national datasets, including both surveys and passive data. These results are particularly striking in the context of a pandemic where children were at low risk of illness and had minimal impact on disease transmission. That is, the closure of schools and daycares came at enormous societal cost and with little benefit. In the future, policymakers should consider this cost-benefit ratio more carefully. In the event the cost-ratio benefit still motivates closure of schools and daycares, proactive measures should be taken to address the known harms.