Freja Thim (University of Copenhagen)
Mikkel Gandil
We study whether childcare educators systematically sort across centers based on child compositions, and what this implies for policies which seek to increase access to childcare. Using Danish administrative data on all educators with pedagogical degrees, we estimate a structural discrete choice model that incorporates observable and unobservable workplace amenities with group-specific preferences, enabling counterfactual policy evaluation. We present very preliminary findings: First, low-quality centers are valued below outside options, raising retention concerns. Second, we find potential ethnic matching, with Danish educators weakly preferring centers with more Danish children while non-Danish educators show the opposite pattern. Preference heterogeneity implies that policies altering center composition may trigger educator re-sorting, potentially offsetting intended effects.