Association between the starting age of non-parental Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), and psycho-social problems in adolescence in West and East Germany – a natural experiment using data from the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS)

Table 2 Linear regression of the association between ECEC-start-age and psycho-social problems in adolescence after controlling for confounders (n = 1022)

	ECEC-start-age groups		SDQ Total Score		Externalizing Psycho-social Problems		Internalizing Psycho-social Problems
	ECEC-start-age groups	n	Beta (95%CI)	P	Beta (95%CI)	P	Beta (95%CI)	P
Germany (n = 1022)	Below age 1	144	1.8 (0.6,2.9)	0.002*	1.3 (0.6,2.0)	0.001*	0.5 (-0.3,1.2)	0.245
	Age 1–2	214	1.4 (0.1,2.8)	0.036*	1.2 (0.4,2.1)	0.005*	0.2 (-0.5,0.9)	0.586
	Age 2–3 (Reference group)	366
	Age 3 + and before schooling	205	1.0 (0.2,1.9)	0.020*	0.4 (-0.1,0.9)	0.149	0.7 (0.1,1.2)	0.017*
	Only cared in Family before schooling	93	0.8 (-0.6,2.1)	0.255	0.7 (-0.1,1.6)	0.099	0.0 (-0.7,0.8)	0.930

Covariates: age in adolescence, gender, schooling type, parents’ divorce by wave 2, and other baseline characters including region (East/West Germany), social economic status, migrant status, number of older siblings, family situation, family cohesion, birth weight, obesity/overweight, age of mother at childbirth, and employment status of mother
* p < 0.05

ISSN: 2050-7283