%0 Report
        %A CATTAN, SaRAH
%A Conti, Gabriella
%A Farquharson, Christine
        %T Workforce Quality and Early Childhood Development at Scale
        %D 2026
        %8 2026 Apr
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 18584
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18584
        %X Early childhood programmes frequently lose effectiveness at scale, yet the role of the workforce remains poorly understood. We document substantial heterogeneity in workforce effectiveness in England's national home-visiting programme for first-time teenage mothers, despite a highly-structured curriculum and well-qualified staff. Exploiting quasi-random assignment of mothers to family nurses, we estimate that a one standard deviation increase in workforce effectiveness raises children's cognitive and socio-emotional development by 0.20-0.23 SD. Structural quality - observable worker characteristics - does not predict effectiveness, but process quality - how visits are delivered - does. Greater effectiveness is linked with improvements in maternal mental health and risk behaviours.
        %K early childhood development
%K home visiting
%K workforce quality
%K process quality
%K scaling
%K Family Nurse Partnership