Program participation of immigrant children: Evidence from the local availability of Head Start

This paper analyzes the impact of the local availability of Head Start, a public preschool program for low-income children, on the participation of immigrant children. We use propensity score methods to flexibly control for numerous individual and neighborhood characteristics and availability of other services aimed at low-income families. We find that having a Head Start center in a child's census tract significantly raises participation of immigrant children, and these results are robust to several sensitivity analyses. Furthermore, the impacts are larger for recent migrants and for those with less access to private transportation, consistent with both information and transportation costs as important factors affecting program participation for immigrants.