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ABSTRACT: Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n ≈ 6,950), a nationally representative sample of children born in 2001, we examined school readiness (academic skills and socioemotional well-being) at kindergarten entry for children who attended Head Start compared with those who experienced other types of child care (prekindergarten, other center-based care, other nonparental care, or parental care). Using propensity score matching methods and ordinary least squares regressions with rich controls, we found that Head Start participants had higher early reading and math scores than children in other nonparental care or parental care but also higher levels of conduct problems than those in parental care. Head Start participants had lower early reading scores compared with children in prekindergarten and had no differences in any outcomes compared with children in other center-based care. Head Start benefits were more pronounced for children who had low initial cognitive ability or parents with low levels of education or who attended Head Start for more than 20 hr per week. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
Developmental Psychology 03/2013; · 3.21 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Using data from the 1967–2009 years of the March Current Population Surveys (CPS), we examine two important resources for children’s well-being: time and money. We document trends in parental employment, from the perspective of children, and show what underlies these trends. We find that increases in family work hours mainly reflect movements into jobs by parents—particularly mothers, who in prior decades would have remained at home. This increase in market work has raised incomes for children in the typical two-parent family but not for those in lone-parent households. Time use data from 1975 and 2003–2008 reveal that working parents spend less time engaged in primary childcare than their counterparts without jobs but more than employed peers in previous cohorts. Analysis of 2004 work schedule data suggests that non-daytime work provides an alternative method of coordinating employment schedules for some dual-earner families.
Demography 02/2013; 50(1):25-49. · 1.93 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: This analysis uses March Current Population Survey data from 1999 to 2010 and a differences-in-differences approach to examine how California's first in the nation paid family leave (PFL) program affected leave-taking by mothers following childbirth, as well as subsequent labor market outcomes. We obtain robust evidence that the California program doubled the overall use of maternity leave, increasing it from an average of three to six weeks for new mothers--with some evidence of particularly large growth for less advantaged groups. We also provide evidence that PFL increased the usual weekly work hours of employed mothers of 1- to 3-year-old children by 10 to 17 percent and that their wage incomes may have risen by a similar amount.
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 01/2013; 32(2):224-45. · 0.93 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: In spite of important differences in some of the resources immigrant parents have to invest in their children, and in immigrant selection rules and settlement policies, there are significant similarities in the relative positions of 4- and 5-year-old children of immigrants in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Children of immigrants underperform their counterparts with native-born parents in vocabulary tests, particularly if a language other than the official language is spoken at home, but are not generally disadvantaged in nonverbal cognitive domains, nor are there notable behavioral differences. These findings suggest that the cross-country differences in cognitive outcomes during the teen years documented in the existing literature are much less evident during the early years.
Child Development 09/2012; 83(5):1591-607. · 4.72 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: This study investigates the link between the frequency of family breakfasts and dinners and child academic and behavioral outcomes in a panel sample of 21,400 children aged 5-15. It complements previous work by examining younger and older children separately and by using information on a large number of controls and rigorous analytic methods to discern whether there is causal relation between family meal frequency (FMF) and child outcomes. In child fixed-effects models, which controlled for unchanging aspects of children and their families, there were no significant (p < .05) relations between FMF and either academic or behavioral outcomes, a novel finding. These results were robust to various specifications of the FMF variables and did not differ by child age.
Child Development 08/2012; · 4.72 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n ≈ 6,800), we examined the factors explaining variation in school readiness in a large and nationally representative sample of children in immigrant and non-immigrant families. In OLS regression models with rich controls to account for selection, we found that language background was a key factor in explaining children of immigrants' expressive language and early reading at kindergarten, whereas both socioeconomic status and language background helped explain their performance in math.
Children and Youth Services Review 04/2012; 34(4):771-782. · 1.27 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: This analysis uses March Current Population Survey data from 1999-2010 and a differences-in-differences approach to examine how California's first in the nation paid family leave (PFL) program affected leave-taking by mothers following childbirth, as well as subsequent labor market outcomes. We obtain robust evidence that the California program more than doubled the overall use of maternity leave, increasing it from around three to six or seven weeks for the typical new mother – with particularly large growth for less advantaged groups. We also provide suggestive evidence that PFL increased the usual weekly work hours of employed mothers of one-to-three year-old children by 6 to 9% and that their wage incomes may have risen by a similar amount.
IZA Institute for the Study of Labor Discussion Paper Series. 12/2011;
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ABSTRACT: This paper critically reviews what we know about the long-term effects of parental leave and early childhood education programs. We find only limited evidence that expansions of parental leave durations improved long-run educational or labor market outcomes of the children whose parents were affected by them, perhaps because benefits are hard to measure or confined to sub-groups, or because leave entitlements were sufficiently long, even before recent extensions, to yield most potential benefits. By contrast, expansions of early education generally yield benefits at school entry, adolescence, and for adults, particularly for disadvantaged children; however the gains may be less pronounced when high quality subsidized child care was available prior to the program expansion or when subsidies increased the use of low quality care.
IZA Institute for the Study of Labor Discussion Paper Series. 12/2011;
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ABSTRACT: This study of the emergence of inequality during the early years is based upon a comparative analysis of children at the age of about five years in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. We study a series of child outcomes related to readiness to learn, focusing on vocabulary development and externalizing behavior. Our major findings are three in number. First, significant inequalities in child capacities emerge even in these early years in all four countries but the disparities are notably greater in the United States and the United Kingdom than in Australia, and particularly in Canada. Second, large differences in cognitive outcomes exist in all countries between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and the mainstream and these are of similar magnitudes across countries. Differences across countries in the overall disparity between cognitive outcomes of the least and most advantaged, therefore, largely reflect variation in the degree to which children at the top of the SES distribution out-perform those in the middle. Third, disparities in social and behavioral development are markedly smaller than in cognitive outcomes and differ from cognitive outcomes in their association with SES across countries. While the smallest SES gaps are found in Australia and Canada for both types of outcome, differences in cognitive outcomes are greatest in the US, while differences in behavioral outcomes are greatest in the UK.
IZA Institute for the Study of Labor Discussion Paper Series. 11/2011;
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ABSTRACT: This study examined the prevalence and determinants of spanking of children at 3 years of age and the associations between spanking and externalizing behaviour and receptive verbal ability at age 5 years. Overall, we find maternal spanking rates of 55.2% and paternal rates of 43.2% at age 3 years. Mothers facing greater stress and those who spanked earlier are more likely to spank at age 3 years, whereas those who report a supportive partner during pregnancy and those who were not US born were less likely to spank. Mothers and fathers in communities where spanking was more normative were more likely to spank. Fathers were less likely to spank daughters at age 3 years. Frequent maternal spanking at age 3 years was associated with externalizing behaviour and receptive vocabulary at age 5 years, controlling for an array of ecological risks, earlier behaviour and verbal capacity. Taking advantage of the large and diverse sample, we explored potential interactions and found no evidence that race, parental warmth, normativeness or child gender moderated the association between spanking and externalizing or receptive vocabulary. These findings add to the literature on negative consequences associated with a widely endorsed parenting practice and highlight the need for research that explores alternative effective discipline practices and addresses parent questions of what else they could, or even should, be doing. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Infant and Child Development 10/2011; 21(1):3 - 33. · 1.20 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (FFCW), a birth cohort study of children in 18 medium to large U.S. cities, to examine the prevalence and determinants of spanking among infants and toddlers (at mean age 14 months). Taking advantage of the large and diverse sample in FFCW, we conduct separate analyses for children of African American (N=1,710), Hispanic (N=853), and white non-Hispanic (N=812) mothers. Overall, about 15% of children are spanked at 12 months, with this share rising to 40% by 18 months and nearly 50% for children age 20 months or older. We find that there are marked differences in the use of spanking across the three racial/ethnic groups, with children of African American mothers more likely to be spanked and at a younger age. Moreover, while some predictors of spanking are seen across all three groups, others vary. Mothers who are young, who report more parental stress, or report their child has a more difficult temperament are more likely to spank across all three groups. However, being a boy increases the risk of spanking only within African American families. First-born children are at elevated risk of spanking to at least some extent in all groups, but much more so within Hispanic families. In addition, maternal employment is associated with a greater likelihood of spanking in Hispanic families.Although spanking at these young ages is not necessarily indicative of maltreatment, it may be a marker for families who are at elevated risk of maltreatment. As such, our findings, by highlighting some risk factors that are common across groups as well as some that are more important for particular groups, may have implications for child abuse prevention.
Children and Youth Services Review 08/2011; 33(8):1364-1373. · 1.27 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Utilizing data from the 1967-2009 years of the March Current Population Surveys, we examine two important resources for children's well-being: time and money. We document trends in parental employment, from the perspective of children, and show what underlies these trends. We find that increases in family work hours mainly reflect movements into jobs by parents who, in prior decades, would have remained at home. This increase in market work has raised incomes for children in the typical two-parent family but not for those in lone-parent households. Time use data from 1975 and 2003-2008 reveal that working parents spend less time engaged in primary childcare than their counterparts without jobs but more than employed peers in previous cohorts. Analysis of 2004 work schedule data suggests that non-daytime work provides an alternative method of coordinating employment schedules for some dual-earner families.
IZA Institute for the Study of Labor Discussion Paper Series. 06/2011;
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ABSTRACT: Utilizing data from the 1967-2009 years of the March Current Population Surveys, we examine two important resources for children’s well-being: time and money. We document trends in parental employment, from the perspective of children, and show what underlies these trends. We find that increases in family work hours mainly reflect movements into jobs by parents who, in prior decades, would have remained at home. This increase in market work has raised incomes for children in the typical two-parent family but not for those in lone-parent households. Time use data from 1975 and 2003-2008 reveal that working parents spend less time engaged in primary childcare than their counterparts without jobs but more than employed peers in previous cohorts. Analysis of 2004 work schedule data suggests that non-daytime work provides an alternative method of coordinating employment schedules for some dual-earner families.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
NBER Working Paper Series. 06/2011;
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01/2011;
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ABSTRACT: In this paper, we analyze the role that early years policy might play in narrowing educational attainment gaps. We begin by examining gaps in school readiness between low-, middle-, and high-income children, drawing on data from new large and nationally representative birth cohort studies in the US and UK. We find that sizable income-related gaps in school readiness are present in both countries before children enter school and then decompose these gaps to identify the factors that account for the poorer scores of low-income children. We then consider what role early years policy could play in tackling these gaps, drawing on the best available evidence to identify promising programs.
Child development research. 01/2011; 2011.
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ABSTRACT: We used longitudinal data from a birth cohort study, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, to investigate the links between Head Start and school readiness in a large and diverse sample of urban children at age 5 (N = 2,803; 18 cities). We found that Head Start attendance was associated with enhanced cognitive ability and social competence and reduced attention problems but not reduced internalizing or externalizing behavior problems. These findings were robust to model specifications (including models with city-fixed effects and propensity-scoring matching). Furthermore, the effects of Head Start varied by the reference group. Head Start was associated with improved cognitive development when compared with parental care or other nonparental care, as well as improved social competence (compared with parental care) and reduced attention problems (compared with other nonparental care). In contrast, compared with attendance at pre-kindergarten or other center-based care, Head Start attendance was not associated with cognitive gains but with improved social competence and reduced attention and externalizing behavior problems (compared with attendance at other center-based care). These associations were not moderated by child gender or race/ethnicity.
Developmental Psychology 01/2011; 47(1):134-52. · 3.21 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Using a large contemporary data set (the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement), the authors examined the effects of parental work schedules on adolescent risky behaviors at age 13 or 14 and the mechanisms that might explain them. Structural equation modeling suggests mothers who worked more often at night spent significantly less time with children and had lower quality home environments, and these mediators were significantly linked to adolescent risky behaviors. Similar effects were not found for evening work schedules, while other types of maternal and paternal nonstandard work schedules were linked to higher parental knowledge of children's whereabouts, which led to lower levels of adolescent risky behaviors. Subgroup analyses revealed that boys, those in families with low incomes, and those whose mothers never worked at professional jobs may particularly be affected by mothers working at nights, due to spending less time together, having a lower degree of maternal closeness, and experiencing lower quality home environments. In addition, the effects of maternal night shifts were particularly pronounced if children were in the preschool or middle-childhood years when their mothers worked those schedules. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.
Developmental Psychology 09/2010; 46(5):1245-67. · 3.21 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The authors used data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being to examine associations of child protective services (CPS) caseworkers' perceptions of caregiver substance abuse with their perceptions of the severity of risk and harm a child experienced as a result of alleged maltreatment, as well as with whether a family experienced a range of CPS outcomes.The outcomes included whether the family received services from CPS, was substantiated for maltreatment, experienced child removal, and was subject to a termination of parental rights (TPR) petition. The authors also compared the magnitude of the association between caseworker-perceived caregiver substance abuse and each outcome to that of the association between other maltreatment-related risk factors and each outcome. Findings suggest that, all else equal, caseworker-perceived caregiver substance abuse is associated with increased caseworker perceptions that children have experienced severe risk and harm and also with an increased probability of each of the CPS outcomes except TPR. Moreover, these associations are equal in magnitude or larger than those between the other risk factors and the outcomes. These findings imply that CPS decisions are heavily influenced by caseworker perceptions of caregiver substance abuse, regardless of the presence of other risk factors for child maltreatment.
Child Maltreatment 05/2010; 15(3):199-210. · 2.77 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Using data from the first 2 phases of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, the authors examine the links between maternal employment in the first 12 months of life and cognitive, social, and emotional outcomes for children at age 3, at age 4.5, and in first grade. Drawing on theory and prior research from developmental psychology as well as economics and sociology, they address 3 main questions. First, what associations exist between 1st-year maternal employment and cognitive, social, and emotional outcomes for children in the first 7 years of life? Second, to what extent do any such associations vary by the child's gender and temperament or the mother's occupation? Third, to what extent do mother's earnings, the home environment (maternal depressive symptoms, sensitivity, and Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) scores), and the type and quality of child care mediate or offset any associations between 1st-year employment and child outcomes, and what is the net effect of 1st-year maternal employment once these factors are taken into account? The authors compare families in which mothers worked full time (55%), part time (23%), or did not work (22%) in the 1st year for non-Hispanic White children (N = 900) and for African-American children (N = 113). Comparisons are also made taking into account the timing of mothers' employment within the 1st year. A rich set of control variables are included. Ordinary least squares and structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses are constructed. With regard to cognitive outcomes, they find that full-time (FT) maternal employment in the first 12 months of life (but not part-time (PT) employment) is associated with significantly lower scores on some, but not all, measures of cognitive development at age 3, at age 4.5, and in first grade for non-Hispanic White children but with no significant associations for the small sample of African-American children. They examine the role of the child's gender and temperament and the mother's occupation in moderating the associations between 1st-year maternal employment and cognitive outcomes but find few significant interactions for either child characteristics or mother's occupation. They examine the role of an extensive set of potential mediators--the mother's earnings, the home environment, and the type and quality of child care. They find that mothers who worked full time have higher income in the 1st year of life and thereafter, that mothers who worked part time have higher HOME and maternal sensitivity scores than mothers who did not work or worked full time, and that mothers who worked either full time or part time were more likely to place their children in high-quality child care by age 3 and 4.5 years and their children spent more time in center-based care by age 4.5 than in families where mothers did not work in the 1st year of life. However, they also find some links between 1st-year maternal employment and elevated levels of maternal depressive symptoms thereafter. Turning to results from SEM, they find that the overall effects of 1st-year maternal employment on the cognitive outcomes are neutral. Regarding social and emotional outcomes, they find no significant associations between 1st-year maternal employment and later social and emotional outcomes (including attachment security) when comparing children whose mothers worked full time or part time in the 1st year with the reference group of children whose mothers did not work in the 1st year, although in models that take the timing of employment within the 1st year into account, they find some significant associations between FT maternal employment in the 1st year and higher levels of caregiver- or teacher-reported externalizing problems at age 4.5 years and in first grade. The results from SEM models indicate that, while neither FT nor PT 1st-year employment has significant total effects on children's externalizing behavior problems at age 4.5 or in first grade, year employment has indirect positive effects, working primarily through differences in the home environment and maternal sensitivity. Another important finding from the SEM models is that center-based care, which is often associated with maternal employment, is not significantly associated with elevated levels of child behavior problems. (Contains 13 tables and 10 figures.)
Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 01/2010; · 5.50 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Jane Waldfogel, Terry-Ann Craigie, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn review recent studies that use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) to examine why children who grow up in single-mother and cohabiting families fare worse than children born into married-couple households. They also present findings from their own new research. Analysts have investigated five key pathways through which family structure might influence child well-being: parental resources, parental mental health, parental relationship quality, parenting quality, and father involvement. It is also important to consider the role of the selection of different types of men and women into different family types, as well as family stability. But analysts remain uncertain how each of these elements shapes children's outcomes. In addition to providing an overview of findings from other studies using FFCWS, Waldfogel, Craigie, and Brooks-Gunn report their own estimates of the effect of a consistently defined set of family structure and stability categories on cognitive, behavioral, and health outcomes of children in the FFCWS study at age five. The authors find that the links between fragile families and child outcomes are not uniform. Family instability, for example, seems to matter more than family structure for cognitive and health outcomes, whereas growing up with a single mother (whether that family structure is stable or unstable over time) seems to matter more than instability for behavior problems. Overall, their results are consistent with other research findings that children raised by stable single or cohabiting parents are at less risk than those raised by unstable single or cohabiting parents. The authors conclude by pointing to three types of policy reforms that could improve outcomes for children. The first is to reduce the share of children growing up in fragile families (for example, through reducing the rate of unwed births or promoting family stability among unwed parents). The second is to address the pathways that place such children at risk (for example, through boosting resources in single-parent homes or fostering father involvement in fragile families). The third is to address directly the risks these children face (for example, through high-quality early childhood education or home-visiting policies).
The Future of Children 01/2010; 20(2):87-112. · 1.98 Impact Factor
