This article outlines how a home visiting intervention in Colombia, delivered at scale through partnering with existing social welfare systems, successfully increased the variety of play materials and play activities in poor households with children aged between 1 and 2 years at the start of the intervention. It explains how these factors, among others which are generally associated with household wealth, are correlated with differences in early learning that are likely to persist into adulthood.
Authors

Research Fellow University College London
Emla Fitzsimons is a Professor of Economics at the University College London Institute of Education and a Research Fellow at the IFS.

Research Fellow Yale University
Costas is a Research Fellow of the IFS and a Professor of Economics at Yale University and a Visiting Professor at University College London.

Research Associate
Marta is a Research Associate, working at the Centre for Evaluation of Development Policies at IFS and at the Inter-American Development.


Journal article details
- Publisher
- Early Childhood Matters, Bernard van Leer Foundation
- ISSN
- 1387-9553
- Issue
- June 2013
Suggested citation
Fernandez, C. et al (2013), 'Enriching the home environment of low-income families in Colombia: a strategy to promote child development at scale'
More from IFS
Understand this issue

Sure Start’s wide-ranging and long-lasting benefits highlight the impact of integrated early years services
Over the long run, Sure Start’s financial benefits could be twice as high as its costs
22 May 2025

Rethinking the Education Maintenance Allowance: Lessons from a long-term analysis
This evidence should prompt us to look beyond simple financial incentives for classroom attendance.
10 March 2025

Do tariffs work?
We discuss the economic consequences of tariffs, why governments use them, and whether they actually achieve their intended goals.
23 January 2025
Policy analysis

The short- and medium-term effects of Sure Start on children’s outcomes
An evaluation of Sure Start’s impacts on education, health, absences, special educational needs, crime and social care, plus a cost–benefit analysis.
22 May 2025

The short- and long-run effects of the Education Maintenance Allowance
This report studies the long-run effect of the Education Maintenance Allowance on educational attainment, earnings and crime.
26 February 2025

How do the last five years measure up on levelling up?
How well – or badly – has the UK fared on the 12 levelling up missions? We examine early progress and the scale of the challenge ahead.
19 June 2024
Academic research

The short- and long-run effects of paying disadvantaged teenagers to go to school
This working paper studies the long-run effect of a cash transfer to disadvantaged students on educational attainment, earnings and crime.
26 February 2025

Intergenerational altruism and transfers of time and money: a life cycle perspective
28 February 2023

Health shocks, health insurance, human capital, and the dynamics of earnings and health
We specify and calibrate a life-cycle model of labor supply and savings incorporating health shocks and medical treatment decisions.
21 October 2024