Kindergarten or Daycare: Is There a Difference in Children's Development?

Why this topic is on parents’ minds

From next April, will your child go to kindergarten or to daycare? For dual-income families, this is a question almost inseparable from “how will we work?” And once you start looking into it, many worries show up.

• Is there a difference in children’s growth between kindergarten and daycare?
• I hear “kindergarten is more educational”—is that true?
• Is leaving a child at daycare from morning to evening bad for development?
• How are certified centers for early childhood education and care (nintei kodomo-en), small-scale childcare, and company-led childcare different?
• With both of us working our options are limited, and I end up feeling sorry toward my child

The last question in particular can easily balloon from social media or a single comment from your in-laws. Research gives a fairly calm answer to this. Let’s go through it in order.

First, sorting out the system — kindergarten, daycare, and certified centers for early childhood education and care

Before getting into research, let’s sort out the Japanese system once. When people talk about “which is more educational,” knowing the institutional differences behind it gives a clearer view of the discussion.

There is one important institutional fact here. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2017)“Course of Study for Kindergarten,” the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2017)“Guidelines for Nursery Care at Day Care Centers,” and the Cabinet Office’s “Course of Education and Care for Integrated Centers for Early Childhood Education and Care”—these three were revised at the same time in 2017, making common, for the educational content for children age 3 and over, “the qualities and abilities to nurture” and “the qualities we hope children will have developed by the end of early childhood (the 10 qualities).”

In other words, as far as children age 3 and over are concerned, the current system is that kindergartens, daycare centers, and certified centers for early childhood education and care have nearly the same educational goals. The image of “kindergarten is education, daycare is just looking after children” does not apply, at least in the design of the system since 2017.

Also, besides daycare centers and kindergartens, the options, especially for ages 0 to 2, have become diverse: small-scale childcare programs (care for ages 0 to 2 with 19 children or fewer), company-led childcare, home-based childcare (hoiku mama), workplace childcare, and more. These are also required to meet national standards to ensure the basic quality of care.

What does the research say?

Here is the core of your question. “Is leaving a child at daycare for long hours bad for their development?”—research around the world has tested this question head-on for more than 20 years. Let’s look at it through three representative studies.

Question 1: Are long hours in child care bad for development?

The largest and longest follow-up on this is the study by the U.S. NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development).

showed, very carefully, “several findings” on the relationship between hours in care and development.

• Children who spent time in environments with high-“quality” care (caregivers’ responsiveness, the amount of talk, safety, etc.) showed significant gains in cognitive and language areas such as vocabulary and pre-reading skills
• This positive effect is also observed in elementary and junior high school (small but lasting)
• On the other hand, the longer the cumulative hours in center-based care, the slightly higher the teacher-rated “externalizing problem behavior (impulsivity, aggression, etc.)”—however, the effect size was small, and much smaller compared with family factors
• For every finding, the influence of the quality of parenting at home (the mother’s sensitivity, the home environment) was larger

What matters in this study is that it did not simply conclude that “long hours in care are bad for development.” Rather, the straightforward reading from 20 years of follow-up is that “high-quality care is good for children’s cognitive development. The quality of parenting at home is by far the biggest factor, and the effect of the quantity of care is small.”

Question 2: Do results change depending on the length of hours in care?

“Then up to how many hours is safe, and from how many hours is it worrying?”—there is also research that has asked this head-on.

organizes the findings by hours of care as follows.

• Starting center-based care at ages 2 to 3 improves readiness in reading and math at school entry (a moderate effect)
• On the other hand, when daily hours in care are too long (well over 30 hours a week), teacher ratings of social skills tend to be slightly lower
• However, this “long-hours effect” is not observed in children from low-income families, or is even positive—in other words, there is an interaction with the home environment
• When the “quality” of care (educational content, caregivers’ engagement) is high, these negative findings weaken

The implication of this research is not the simple story “long hours = bad,” but that it should be evaluated by the combination of “the quality of engagement the child gets at home” and “the quality of care.” The current landing point can be said to be that if the child receives high-quality care and is also engaged with carefully at home, the grounds for treating long hours of care itself as a problem are weak.

Question 3: Then is there a difference in educational effect between the “kindergarten type” and the “daycare type”?

The research so far has been American, but in Europe there are studies that tested, through natural experiments (analyses that use regional differences in policy), “how providing universal child care to working parents affects children’s development.”

showed findings like the following.

• Children who used child care showed gains in motor skills and social-emotional development (a moderate effect)
• A mild gain in language development too
• The effects were especially large for socioeconomically disadvantaged children and children with immigrant backgrounds
• No negative cognitive findings were observed

What matters here is that in many European countries, including Germany, although there is a distinction between “kindergarten (under the education ministry)” and “daycare (under the welfare ministry),” the educational content for age 3 and over is becoming unified. In research too, there are few designs that strictly compare “kindergarten type vs. daycare type”; what is being asked is rather the effect of “spending time in a facility where the quality of care is kept above a certain level” itself.

In Japan’s case, because the educational content for age 3 and over was made common by the simultaneous 2017 revision by three government bodies, expecting a big difference in educational content between “kindergarten or daycare” has become a question out of step with the design of the system.

If you are actually going to do it, how should you go about it?

Based on research, here are points that are easy for families to put into practice.

1. Start from “how your family works and whether you can keep it up,” rather than “kindergarten or daycare”

Choosing where your child goes is not a puzzle to maximize your child’s development, but an effort to build a system the whole family can keep up without strain. If daycare (or a certified center for early childhood education and care, or small-scale childcare) is realistic for a dual-income family, that is the first right answer. Seriously considering “changing how we work because we want our child in kindergarten” is only warranted when there is a prospect that “the time available to engage carefully with the child at home will clearly increase.”

2. Have points for seeing “the quality of care” when you visit

What research has shown to correlate with development are roughly the following elements.

• Caregivers’ responsiveness: when a child does something, does the caregiver make eye contact and respond?
• The amount and quality of talk: is there back-and-forth as conversation, not just instructions and warnings?
• The number of caregivers per child: is staffing arranged so they can keep an eye on everyone?
• A safe and varied environment: are there chances for various kinds of play, such as outdoor play, picture books, and hand and finger activities?
• Caregivers’ calm: are they not worn out, and do they watch the children closely?

Rather than surface selling points such as “uses the ___ method” or “offers English education,” observing the “moments of interaction” between caregivers and children during a visit gives information that is meaningful according to research.

3. Time at home: “even if short, be conscious of the quality of engagement”

What the NICHD study showed repeatedly was that the quality of parenting at home predicts children’s development overwhelmingly more than the quantity of care. Even when time at home is short with both parents working:

• A morning greeting and a word like “Today you’re doing this, aren’t you?”
• A “How was today?” conversation starting from the daycare’s contact notebook or what the teacher said
• One picture book before bed, and time for a tight hug

“Moments, even short ones, of focusing on the child” like these are far more meaningful according to research than the length of time at home itself.

4. Keep some distance from the “three-year-old myth” and “guilt about long hours in care”

The claim that “until age 3, the mother should be at home” was concluded in Japan’s 1998 Annual Report on Health and Welfare to have “no rational basis.” Research since then points the same way. When you come across claims that stoke anxiety, pausing for a beat to ask, “What research is this based on?” is enough distance.

5. Consider certified centers, small-scale childcare, and company-led childcare too

Especially for ages 0 to 2, the options are not only “kindergarten or daycare.”

• Certified centers for early childhood education and care (nintei kodomo-en): combine the functions of kindergarten and daycare. Easier to keep attending even if how you work changes
• Small-scale childcare programs: care for ages 0 to 2 with 19 children or fewer. The attentive care is an appeal
• Company-led childcare: can be used by eligible companies at or near your workplace. Flexible operation
• Home-based childcare (hoiku mama): a small, home-like environment

The best answer changes depending on how each fits with your family’s schedule, commuting routes, and your child’s temperament. Before deciding “daycare has no openings, so we have no choice but to switch to kindergarten,” it is worth taking stock of the options in your area once.

Closing dialogue