It is clearly visible that the attendedance rate for five and and six year old children remained rather constant around 90 percent. On the other hand there is a sharp increase in the attendance rates for three and four year old children observed between 1996 and 2001. For the children aged three years attendance increases from slightly above 30 percent to slightly above 50 percent and for the children aged four years the attendance rate increases from 60 percent to over 80 percent. So it seems reasonable that the introduction of the claim indeed raised childcare attendance especially among the children of age three and four.
Other descriptive statistics show that indeed a majority - by far not all - children started the kindergarten year when the school year started. For federal states where the schoolyear usually starts in August/September more than 50 percent of the children started their childcare attendance in the same month as the new school year. This magnitude is on the one hand probabely relevant but as we will later discuss it also influences the LATE the IV approach in a unfavorable manner.