Stratification in parents’ selection of developmentally appropriate books for children: register-based evidence from Danish public libraries

This paper studies socioeconomic gradients in parents' selection of developmentally appropriate children's books from public libraries. I draw developmental gradients research to hypothesize that families with high socioeconomic status (SES) select a higher share of books that match children's developmental stage in order to best improve children's learning environments. Based on Danish registry data on all books borrowed from public libraries in 2020, I find that highly educated families are more likely to use libraries and borrow more books, but they do not select a larger share of developmentally appropriate books;in fact, they select a slightly lower share. In contrast, high-income families borrow both slightly more books and a slightly higher share of developmentally appropriate books, than low-income families. The supplementary analyses show that results are robust across families with children of different ages and to account for nonrandom selection into the sample of library users, socioeconomic differences in children's reading skills, and the impact of library lockdowns due to Covid-19. I conclude that stratification in library book selection is more prominent concerning the voraciousness with which highly educated parents provide reading inputs (more books) than how discriminating they are in terms of selecting developmentally appropriate books. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of European Societies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Inequality in learning opportunities during Covid-19: Evidence from library takeout.

Research shows that Covid-19 enhanced inequality in families' learning environments. We use register data from Denmark to analyze inequality in families' takeout of digital children's books from public libraries. Our register data, which include more than 55 million observations of families' daily library takeout, show that the socioeconomic gradient in library takeout (by parents' education and income) that existed before the Covid-19 lockdown increased after the lockdown. We also find that the increase in the socioeconomic gradient during Covid-19 was weaker in immigrant than in native families, stronger in families with recent experience in taking out digital materials from the library, and stronger in families with children in the early stages of elementary school. Overall, our results suggest that Covid-19 increased inequality in learning opportunities because better off families were more successful at using libraries during the pandemic than worse off families.