Jane Waldfogel

• Columbia University

This paper presents comparative information on the strength of the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and literacy skills at ages 6–8, drawing on data from France, Germany, Japan, Rotterdam (Netherlands), the United Kingdom, and the United States. We investigate whether the strength of the association between SES and literacy skills in...

This paper explores the role of family trajectories during childhood in explaining inequalities by maternal education in children's math and reading skills using harmonized, longitudinal, and nationally representative surveys, which follow children over the course of primary and lower secondary school in four high‐income countries (England, France,...

More young adults in the United States are studying beyond high school and working full-time than in the past, yet young adults continue to have high poverty rates as they transition to adulthood. This study uses longitudinal data on two cohorts of young adults from the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Study of Youth to assess whether convention...

The Child Tax Credit (CTC) has become an increasingly important element of the U.S. safety net. We discuss the structure of the CTC and its effects on childhood poverty and other indicators of well-being during its three distinct phases: prior to the 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP) expansion, during the expansion, and after the expansion’s expirati...

This paper provides new evidence on inequalities in resources for children age 3–4 by parental education using harmonized data from six advanced industrialized countries—United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Japan—that represent different social welfare regime types. We analyze inequalities in two types of resources for y...

There is substantial variation in the degree of social stratification in students’ achievement across countries. However, most research is based on cross-sectional data. In this study, we evaluate the importance of social origin, namely, parents’ education, for achievement inequalities during lower secondary school using recent longitudinal microda...

Context Paid sick leave (PSL) is a public health strategy associated with benefits for workers, businesses, and consumers. In the absence of a federal law, in 2014, New York City (NYC) joined other state and municipal governments with local PSL policies. Objectives To examine changes in PSL after the implementation of NYC's 2014 Paid Safe and Sick...

Background Research on factors underlying socioeconomic status (SES)-related inequalities in child development mainly focuses on single countries and specific influential factors. Only few studies scrutinize to what extent differences in children’s early behavioural outcomes vary across countries and whether the processes that account for them are...

While research highlights that, on average, women's income and labor force participation fall around the time of a birth, little is known about how women's experiences of poverty around childbirth vary by birth parity or race and ethnicity. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Supplemental Poverty Measure (a compre...

Background There are significant cross-country differences in socio-economic gradients in later childhood and adulthood overweight/obesity; few studies assess whether this cross-national variation is evident from early childhood. Furthermore, the role of childcare in explaining overweight/obesity gradients might vary across countries, given differe...

Background: Prior estimates of the cumulative risks of child welfare system contact illustrate the prominence of this system in the lives of children in the United States (U.S.). However, these estimates report national data on a system administered at the state and local levels and are unable to detail potential simultaneous geographic and racial...

To study the impacts of New York’s 2018 Paid Family Leave (PFL) policy on employer outcomes, we designed and fielded a survey of small firms in New York and a control state, Pennsylvania, which does not have a PFL policy. We match each NY firm to a comparable PA firm and use difference-in-differences models to analyze within-match-pair changes in o...

This paper presents comparative information on the socioeconomic status (SES) gradients in literacy skills at age 6-8, drawing on harmonized national datasets from France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We investigate whether understanding of comparative SES gradients in early-to-mid childhood depends on...

Background: Few studies have investigated whether Child Protective Services (CPS) contact influences child wellbeing, independent of underlying maltreatment and not considered as a proxy for such maltreatment. Objective: The present study estimates the association between CPS contact and child delinquency, education, substance use, and mental he...

The temporary monthly child tax credit implemented in 2021 had the potential to affect many aspects of child and family well-being, including poverty, hardship, use of food pantries, spending on child-related items, and parents’ mental health and employment. The authors assess these effects using data from two longitudinal studies of well-being in...

Young adults in the United States, especially young Black adults, experience high poverty rates relative to other age groups. Prior research has largely attributed racial disparities in young adult poverty to differential attainment of benchmarks related to education, employment, and family formation. This study investigates that mechanism alongsid...

This article reviews the evidence on the impacts of paid family and medical leave (PFML) policies on workers’ health, family well-being, and employer outcomes. While an extensive body of research demonstrates the mostly beneficial effects of PFML taken by new parents on infant, child, and parental health, less is known about its impact on employees...

Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood Body Mass Index (BMI) are becoming increasingly more pronounced across the world. Although countries differ in the direction and strength of these inequalities, cross-national comparative research on this topic is rare. This paper draws on harmonized longitudinal cohort data from four wealthy countries—German...

The temporary monthly Child Tax Credit implemented in 2021 had the potential to affect many aspects of child and family well-being, including poverty, hardship, use of food pantries, spending on child-related items, and parents’ mental health and employment. We assess these effects using data from two longitudinal studies of well-being in New York...

Child outcomes vary by family’s socioeconomic status (SES). Research on explanatory factors underlying early SES-related disparities has mainly focused on specific child outcomes (e.g., language skills) and selected influencing factors in single countries often with a focus on individual differences but not explicitly on early SES-related gaps. Thi...

This study takes a cross-country perspective to examine whether inaccurate teacher judgements of students’ math skills correlate with student social origin and whether such bias is associated with math achievement in primary school. We focus on England, Germany, and the US because these countries differ in the teachers’ growth mindsets, accountabil...

The majority of children acquire language effortlessly but approximately 10% of all children find it difficult especially in the early or preschool years with consequences for many aspects of their subsequent development and experience: literacy, social skills, educational qualifications, mental health and employment. With contributions from an int...

There is substantial variation in the degree of social stratification in students’ achievement across countries. However, most research is based on cross-sectional data. In this study, we evaluate the importance of social origin, namely parents’ education, for achievement inequalities during lower secondary school using recent longitudinal microdat...

Official poverty estimates for the United States are presented annually, based on a family unit's annual resources, and reported with a considerable lag. This study introduces a framework to produce monthly estimates of the Supplemental Poverty Measure and official poverty measure, based on a family unit's monthly income, and with a two‐week lag. W...

Background and Purpose Child protective service (CPS) contact is consistently linked with poverty in the US, and empirical evidence is mounting to indicate that disparate exposure to income poverty explains a substantial portion of racial inequities in CPS involvement. Evidence about the different distributions of income poverty and material hardsh...

In recent decades, the provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) has risen up the policy agenda right across the globe. One central driving force has been the increasing labour force participation of women, which has created a growing demand for childcare services for preschool age children. Governments have encouraged and subsidised t...

Child protective service (CPS) contact occurs at substantially higher rates among Black than White families. The present study considers systemic racism as a central driver of this disparity and emphasizes racialized poverty as a possible mechanism. We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and logistic regression analyses to...

Children born to unmarried parents make up an increasing share of American children. But official poverty statistics provide little insight into their economic well-being because these statistics use an outdated definition of the family unit and an incomplete measure of family resources. Using Current Population Survey data and an improved measure...

The United States is one of the few countries that does not guarantee paid family leave (PFL) to workers. Proposals for PFL legislation are often met with opposition from employer organizations, which fear disruptions to business, especially among small employers. But there are limited data on employers’ views. The authors surveyed firms with 10 to...

Paid family leave allows workers to take time off from work to care for a family member with a serious health condition, with reduced financial risk and increased job continuity. In 2004, California was the first state in the nation to implement a paid family leave program allowing workers to take up to 8 weeks off work with partial pay to care for...

Children experiencing poverty or low incomes fare worse than their more advantaged peers on a host of developmental and educational outcomes. Interventions have focused on strengthening parenting in families with young children, when supports appear to be most critical. But most parenting programs for low-income families fail to address parents’ ec...

The United States is the only high‐income country that does not have a national policy mandating paid leave to working women who give birth. Increased rates of maternal employment post‐birth call for greater understanding of the effects of family leave on infant development. This study examined the links between paid leave and toddler language, cog...

Background More than 20% of the children around the world were stunted in 2018. The situation is not any better in Latin American countries, even though stunting prevalence has been declining since 2000. Stunting has adverse consequences on children: severe short- and long-term health and functional effects, poor cognition and educational performan...

Empirical research repeatedly shows cross-country differences in the extent and distribution of socioeconomic inequalities in educational achievement. This observation is the starting point for the comparative DICE-project (Development of Inequalities in Child Educational Achievement: A Six-Country Study). It aims to improve the understanding of ch...

Objective Research shows that population-level rates of obesity, which rose dramatically from the 1970s through the mid-2000s, have since plateaued or even started to decline. However, overall improvements may mask differences in trends for different subgroups. For instance, obesity rates have continued to climb among low-income adolescents, leadin...

This study examines the socioeconomic status gradients in children’s well‐being at school using data on the total population of Danish public school children age 6–11 (N = 147,994). Children completed the national well‐being at school survey, an environment‐specific self‐report of satisfaction with school, social well‐being at school, and psycholog...

The United States is the only high-income country that does not have a national policy mandating paid leave to working women who give birth. Increased rates of maternal employment post-birth call for greater understanding of the effects of family leave on infant development. This study examined the links between paid leave and toddler language, cog...

State approaches to reducing child poverty vary considerably. We exploit this state-level variation to estimate what could be achieved in terms of child poverty if all states adopted the most generous or inclusive states’ policies. Specifically, we simulate the child poverty reductions that would occur if every state were as generous or inclusive a...

Objective To study the effect of California's first in the nation paid family leave policy on maternal ostpartum psychological distress for women overall and for disadvantaged groups. Methods We use restricted data from 11 waves of the National HealthInterview Survey, from 2000 to 2010, to examine mothers with children under the age of 12 months (...

Paternity leave-taking is believed to benefit children by encouraging father-child bonding after a birth and enabling commitments to fathers’ engagement. Yet, no known U.S. studies have directly focused on the associations between paternity leave-taking and children’s reports of father-child relationships. Understanding the potential consequences o...

Although the gender wage gap in the United States has narrowed, women’s career trajectories diverge from men’s after the birth of children, suggesting a potential role for family-friendly policies. We provide new evidence on employer provision of these policies. Using the American Time Use Survey, we find that women are less likely than men to have...

Recent research using an improved measure of poverty finds that poverty has fallen by nearly forty percent since the 1960s in the United States. But past research has not examined whether this finding holds across detailed demographic groups who might be more or less vulnerable to poverty. This paper helps fill that gap, focusing on one such vulner...

A growing body of research has begun to examine disparities in children’s early executive functions (EF), but few studies have examined disparities in EF based on parent education and whether parental beliefs regarding education and types of parental investments in early learning help explain them. The purpose of this study was to examine dispariti...

For many decades there has been research on the relationship between parents' socioeconomic status (SES) and their children's cognitive skills. Meta-analyses for school aged children show correlations ranging from r=.22 up to r=.42 for different cognitive and scholastic assessment tests (White, 1982; Sirin, 2005; Sackett et al., 2009). With publica...

Public charge, a term used by immigration officials for over 100 years, refers to a person who relies on public assistance at the government’s expense. Immigrants who are deemed at high risk of becoming a public charge can be denied green cards; those outside of the United States can be denied entry. Current public charge policy largely applies to...

This article examines the state of social work scholarship in contemporary social policy using three illustrative domains: antipoverty policy, child welfare policy, and health policy. We argue that social work has a comparative advantage in social policy research as a practice profession and a profession with a social justice mission. In each domai...

Previous research has documented significantly larger income-related gaps in children’s early cognitive development in the United States than in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. In this study, we investigate the extent to which this is a result of a more unequal income distribution in the United States. We show that although incomes are m...

"Public charge," a term used by U.S. immigration officials for more than 100 years, refers to a person who relies on, or is likely to rely on, public assistance at the government's expense. Foreign-born individuals who are deemed at high risk of becoming a public charge can be denied green cards; those outside of the U.S. can be denied entry. Curre...

According to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, state-level poverty rates range from a low of less than 10 percent in Iowa to a high of more than 20 percent in California. We seek to account for these differences using a theoretical framework proposed by Brady, Finnigan, and Hübgen (2017), which emphasizes the prevalence of poverty risk factors as w...

The use of savings products to promote financial inclusion has increasingly become a policy priority across sub‐Saharan Africa, yet little is known about how families respond to varying levels of savings incentives and whether the promotion of incentivized savings in low‐resource settings may encourage households to restrict expenditures on basic n...

We examined the associations between preschool attendance and academic school readiness at kindergarten entry among 5-year-old children of immigrant mothers in the United States using data from a US nationally representative sample (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Birth Cohort, N = 1650). Comparing children who were in preschool (Head Start, pre...

To reduce child poverty and income instability, and eliminate extreme poverty among families with children in the United States, we propose converting the Child Tax Credit and child tax exemption into a universal, monthly child allowance. Our proposal is based on principles we argue should undergird the design of such policies: universality, access...

Purpose: Nearly 12 million children and adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents to AIDS. Within sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda has been greatly impacted, with an estimated 1.2 million orphaned children, nearly half of which have experienced parental loss due to the epidemic. Cost-effective and scalable interventions are needed...

This study examined factors associated with being paid for sick leave after implementation of the New York City (NYC) paid sick leave law. A random sample of NYC residents was surveyed by telephone multiple times over a 2-year period. Participants (n = 1195) reported socio-demographics, awareness of the law, income, work hours per week, and payment...

Although many studies have investigated links between maternal employment and children’s wellbeing, less research has considered whether the stability of maternal employment is linked with child outcomes. Using unique employment calendar data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,011), an urban birth cohort study of largely low...

This study estimates the associations of income with both (self-reported) child protective services involvement and parenting behaviors that proxy for child abuse and neglect risk among unmarried families. Our primary strategy follows the instrumental variables approach employed by Dahl and Lochner (2012), which leverages variation between states a...

Using difference-in-difference and difference-in-difference-in-difference designs, we study California's Paid Family Leave (CA-PFL) program, the first source of government-provided paid parental leave available to fathers in the Unites States. Relative to the pre-treatment mean, fathers of infants in California are 46 percent more likely to be on l...

Associations between first-year maternal employment and mother—and youth-reported externalizing behavior at age 15 were examined paying attention to potential mediating roles of home and child care environments by 36 months, effortful control at 54 months, and externalizing behavior at 54 months and middle childhood. We used data from the NICHD Stu...

Poverty has a strong relationship to geography in the United States. Previous research has found that rural areas have higher average poverty rates than urban areas, but the new supplemental poverty measure (SPM) has shown in recent years that urban areas have higher average poverty. In this article, we analyze poverty trends from 1967 to 2014 in r...

This book is concerned with the social science of poverty and covers topics ranging from the intricacies of measuring poverty using objective quantitative, income-based measures, to the interrelationships between structural violence, poverty, and social suffering; capability deprivation as the basis for analyzing poverty; ideologies and beliefs abo...

We use data from the Current Population Survey and the new Supplemental Poverty Measure to provide estimates for poverty among foster children from 1992 to 2013. These are the first large-scale, national estimates for foster children because they are not included in official poverty statistics. Holding child and family demographics constant, foster...

Between 1968 and 2013, the poverty rate of young children age 0 to 5 years fell by nearly one third, in large part because of the role played by anti-poverty programs. However, young children in the U.S. still face a much higher rate of poverty than do older children in the U.S. They also continue to have a much higher poverty rate than do young ch...

A growing literature connects childhood socio-emotional skills to adult socio-economic outcomes. But what explains differing levels of socio-emotional skills? Current theories consider parental investment and socialisation, but neglect the emotional and relational aspects of parenting. Attachment theory offers a model of the micro-level mechanisms...

Official poverty statistics have been criticized, however, for being based on an outdated measure of poverty (Blank, 2008; Citro and Michael, 1995). First put into use in the 1960s, the official poverty measure’s (OPM) concept of needs has been updated for inflation but still reflects the living standards, family budgets, and family structures of t...

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently developed a substantially improved measure of poverty, the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The SPM has only been released since 2009, and prior efforts by researchers to construct a historical SPM time series have not taken into account an essential element of the new measure -...

This paper examines the association between the Great Recession and four measures of the risk for maternal child abuse and neglect: (1) maternal physical aggression; (2) maternal psychological aggression; (3) physical neglect by mothers; and (4) supervisory/exposure neglect by mothers. It draws on rich longitudinal data from the Fragile Families an...

This study compares the early life experiences of kindergarteners in 1998 and 2010 using two nationally representative data sets. We find that (a) young children in the later period are exposed to more books and reading in the home, (b) they have more access to educational games on computers, and (c) they engage with their parents more, inside and...

This paper provides new evidence on the family gap in pay—the differential in hourly wages between women with children and women without children—between 1967 and 2013, five decades that include important changes in women's employment, especially mothers' employment, policy reforms as well as contrasting economic cycles. We use data from the Curren...

This study examines historical trends in poverty using an anchored version of the U.S. Census Bureau’s recently developed Research Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) estimated back to 1967. Although the SPM is estimated each year using a quasi-relative poverty threshold that varies over time with changes in families’ expenditures on a core basket o...

We use data from the 1968–2013 October Current Population Survey to document trends in 3- and 4-year-old children’s enrollment in center-based early childhood education, focusing on gaps in enrollment among children from low-, middle-, and high-income families. We find that income-related gaps in enrollment widened in the 1970s and 1980s but appear...

Unprecedented global forces are shaping the health and wellbeing of the largest generation of 10 to 24 year olds in human history. Population mobility, global communications, economic development, and the sustainability of ecosystems are setting the future course for this generation and, in turn, humankind. At the same time, we have come to new und...

Young people's health has emerged as a neglected yet pressing issue in global development. Changing patterns of young people's health have the potential to undermine future population health as well as global economic development unless timely and effective strategies are put into place. We report the past, present, and anticipated burden of diseas...

The official measure of poverty has been used to assess trends in children's poverty rates for many decades. But because of flaws in official poverty statistics, these basic trends have the potential to be misleading. We use an augmented Current Population Survey data set that calculates an improved measure of poverty to reexamine child poverty rat...

The New York City (NYC) Longitudinal Study of Wellbeing, or “Poverty Tracker,” is a survey of approximately 2300 NYC residents. Its purpose is to provide a multidimensional and dynamic understanding of economic disadvantage in NYC. Measures of disadvantage were collected at baseline and a 12-month follow-up, and include 3 types of disadvantage: 1)...

Background: Maternal labor force participation has increased dramatically over the last 40 years, yet surprisingly little is known about longitudinal patterns of maternal labor force participation in the years after a birth, or how these patterns vary by education. Objective: We document variation by maternal education in mothers' labor force pa...

This article examines associations between the Great Recession and 4 aspects of 9-year olds' behavior-aggression (externalizing), anxiety/depression (internalizing), alcohol and drug use, and vandalism-using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal birth cohort drawn from 20 U.S. cities (21%, White, 50% Black, 26% Hispanic, an...

This paper examines how the quality of early childhood education and care accessed by three and four year olds in England varies by children’s background. Focusing on the free entitlement to early education, the analysis combines information from three administrative datasets for 2010-11, the Early Years Census, the Schools Census and the Ofsted in...

Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey and the March Current Population Survey, we provide poverty estimates for 1967 to 2012 based on a historical supplemental poverty measure (SPM). During this period, poverty, as officially measured, has stagnated. However, the official poverty measure (OPM) does not account for the effect of near-cash...

The belief that with hard work and determination, all children have the opportunity to succeed in life is a cherished part of the American Dream. Yet, increased inequality in America has made that dream more difficult for many to obtain. In Too Many Children Left Behind, an international team of social scientists assesses how social mobility varies...

In recent years, several OECD countries have taken steps to promote policies encouraging fathers to spend more time caring for young children, thereby promoting a more gender equal division of care work. Evidence, mainly for the United States and United Kingdom, has shown fathers taking some time off work around childbirth are more likely to be inv...

This study used the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study to examine the effects of repeated exposure to harsh parenting on child externalizing behavior across the first decade of life, and a moderating role for cumulative ecological risk. Maternal report of harsh parenting, defined as high frequency spanking, was assessed at age 1, 3, 5, and...

Head Start includes family-oriented services to enhance parent–child relationships, but little is known about the effect of Head Start on parenting practices. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Birth Cohort (n ≈ 7000), we examined whether participation in Head Start was associated with maternal spanking, with particular attentio...

Using data (n = 3,790 with 2,119 in the 3-year-old cohort and 1,671 in the 4-year-old cohort) from 353 Head Start centers in the Head Start Impact Study, the only large-scale randomized experiment in Head Start history, this article examined the impact of Head Start on children's cognitive and parent-reported social-behavioral outcomes through firs...

This study is the first to test whether receipt of a federal child care subsidy is associated with children of immigrants' school readiness skills. Using nationally representative data (n ≈ 2,900), this study estimates the associations between subsidy receipt at age 4 and kindergarten cognitive and social outcomes, for children of immigrant versus...

Social scientists have long been concerned about how the fortunes of parents affect their children, with acute interest in the most marginalized children. Yet little sociological research considers children in foster care. In this review, we take a three-pronged approach to show why this inattention is problematic. First, we provide overviews of th...