Associations between type and age of entry into Norwegian universally-accessible childcare and children’s behavior problems at age 3 years were examined in this study. Data from 73,068 children in the large population-based, prospective Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) were used, and included information about childcare arrangements, behavior problems, and a variety of covariates. The results provided little support for childcare being related to children’s behavior problems at age 3 years when controlling for covariates. In fact, previous research has indicated that children may benefit from Norway’s childcare in other areas, such as language development. Results are discussed in relation to differences in countries' early childhood policies as a possible factor explaining discrepancies across studies.
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