Family issues
Parental Debt and Children’s Socioemotional Well-being
Lawrence Berger & Jason Houle
Pediatrics, February 2016
Objectives: We estimated associations between total amount of parental debt and of home mortgage, student loan, automobile, and unsecured debt with children’s socioemotional well-being.
Methods: We used population-based longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 Cohort and Children of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 Cohort. Our analytic sample consisted of 29 318 child-year observations of 9011 children and their mothers observed annually or biennially from 1986 to 2008. We used the Behavioral Problems Index to measure socioemotional well-being. We used ordinary least squares regressions to estimate between-child associations of amounts and types of parental debt with socioemotional well-being, net of a host of control variables, and regressions with child-specific fixed effects to estimate within-child associations of changes in parental debt with changes in socioemotional well-being, net of all time-constant observed and unobserved confounders.
Results: Greater total debt was associated with poorer child socioemotional well-being. However, this association varied by type of debt. Specifically, higher levels of home mortgage and education debt were associated with greater socioemotional well-being for children, whereas higher levels of and increases in unsecured debt were associated with lower levels of and declines in child socioemotional well-being.
Conclusions: Debt that allows for investment in homes (and perhaps access to better neighborhoods and schools) and parental education is associated with greater socioemotional well-being for children, whereas unsecured debt is negatively associated with socioemotional development, which may reflect limited financial resources to invest in children and/or parental financial stress. This suggests that debt is not universally harmful for children’s well-being, particularly if used to invest in a home or education.
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The Quantity-Quality Trade-off and the Formation of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skills
Chinhui Juhn, Yona Rubinstein & Andrew Zuppann
NBER Working Paper, December 2015
Abstract:
We estimate the impact of increases in family size on childhood and adult outcomes using matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Using twins as an instrumental variable and panel data to control for omitted factors we find that families face a substantial quantity-quality trade-off: increases in family size decrease parental investment, decrease childhood cognitive abilities, and increase behavioral problems. The negative effects on cognitive abilities are much larger for girls while the detrimental effects on behavior are larger for boys. We also find evidence of heterogeneous effects by mother's AFQT score, with the negative effects on cognitive scores being much larger for children of mothers with low AFQT scores.
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Antti Tanskanen & Mirkka Danielsbacka
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, forthcoming
Abstract:
Based on maternity certainty and paternity uncertainty, one can predict that individuals will channel investment in their kin according to more genetically certain investment options. According to the preferential investment in more certain kin theory, if aunts and uncles have the option to invest in either their sisters’ or their brothers’ children they would prefer to invest in their sisters’ children. However, this question has not been previously explored in contemporary societies with nationally representative data from two generations of aunts and uncles. In our study, we have used data gathered in the Generational Transmissions in Finland project in 2012. The respondents represent older adults (born between 1945 and 1950, n = 1,604) and younger adults (born between 1962 and 1993, n = 1,159). We find that when aunts and uncles have nieces and nephews via both sisters and brothers, they have more contacts with their sisters’ children than their brothers’ children. Thus, the results are in accordance with the preferential investment theory.
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WIC Participation and Maternal Behavior: Breastfeeding and Work Leave
Lindsey Rose Bullinger & Tami Gurley-Calvez
Contemporary Economic Policy, January 2016, Pages 158-172
Abstract:
We examine the effects of the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program on breastfeeding outcomes and maternal employment decisions. This research expands the existing literature using an alternative identification strategy and a broader set of outcomes. Using data from the Infant Feeding Practices Study II, we control for selection bias into WIC using the variation in food prices as an instrumental variable. The results of this study are robust to a number of specification and falsification tests. We find WIC decreases exclusive breastfeeding by nearly 50% and increases work leave duration by over 20%.
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Un-Fortunate Sons: Effects of the Vietnam Draft Lottery on the Next Generation’s Labor Market
Sarena Goodman & Adam Isen
Federal Reserve Working Paper, December 2015
Abstract:
We study how randomized variation from the Vietnam draft lottery affects the next generation's labor market. Using the universe of federal tax returns, we link fathers from draft cohorts to their sons and offer two primary findings. First, sons of men called by the lottery have lower earnings and labor force participation than their peers. Second, they are more likely to volunteer for military service themselves. Similar but smaller effects are uncovered for daughters. Our findings demonstrate that manipulating parental circumstances can alter children's outcomes and, more specifically, are consistent with two separately operating channels: (1) parental inputs as important determinants of human capital development and (2) intergenerational transmission of occupation.
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Promotion of Positive Parenting and Prevention of Socioemotional Disparities
Adriana Weisleder et al.
Pediatrics, February 2016
Objective: The goal of this study was to determine what effects pediatric primary care interventions, focused on promotion of positive parenting through reading aloud and play, have on the socioemotional development of toddlers from low-income, primarily immigrant households.
Methods: This randomized controlled trial included random assignment to 1 of 2 interventions (Video Interaction Project [VIP] or Building Blocks [BB]) or to a control group. Mother–newborn dyads were enrolled postpartum in an urban public hospital. In VIP, dyads met with an interventionist on days of well-child visits; the interventionist facilitated interactions in play and shared reading through provision of learning materials and review of videotaped parent–child interactions. In BB, parents were mailed parenting pamphlets and learning materials. This article analyzes socioemotional outcomes from 14 to 36 months for children in VIP and BB versus control.
Results: A total of 463 dyads (69%) contributed data. Children in VIP scored higher than control on imitation/play and attention, and lower on separation distress, hyperactivity, and externalizing problems, with effect sizes ∼0.25 SD for the sample as a whole and ∼0.50 SD for families with additional psychosocial risks . Children in BB made greater gains in imitation/play compared with control.
Conclusions: These findings support the efficacy of VIP, a preventive intervention targeting parent–child interactions, for enhancing socioemotional outcomes in low-income toddlers. Given the low cost and potential for scalability of primary care interventions, findings support expansion of pediatric-based parenting programs such as VIP for the primary prevention of socioemotional problems before school entry.
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Adolescent Susceptibility to Peer Influence in Sexual Situations
Laura Widman et al.
Journal of Adolescent Health, forthcoming
Purpose: One consistent predictor of adolescents' engagement in sexual risk behavior is their belief that peers are engaging in similar behavior; however, not all youth are equally susceptible to these peer influence effects. Understanding individual differences in susceptibility to peer influence is critical to identifying adolescents at risk for negative health outcomes. The purpose of this project was to identify predictors of susceptibility to peer influence using a novel performance-based measure of sexual risk taking.
Methods: Participants were 300 early adolescents (Mage = 12.6 years; 53% female; 44% Caucasian) who completed (1) a pretest assessment of demographics, sexual attitudes, and hypothetical scenarios measuring the likelihood of engaging in sexual risk behavior and (2) a subsequent experimental procedure that simulated an Internet chat room in which youth believed that they were communicating with peers regarding these same hypothetical scenarios. In reality, these “peers” were computer-programmed e-confederates. Changes in responses to the sexual scenarios in the private pretest versus during the public chat room provided a performance-based measure of peer influence susceptibility.
Results: In total, 78% of youth provided more risky responses in the chat room than those in pretest. The most robust predictor of this change was gender, with boys significantly more susceptible to peer influence than girls. Significant interactions also were noted, with greater susceptibility among boys with later pubertal development and African-American boys.
Conclusions: Results confirm that not all youth are equally susceptible to peer influence. Consistent with sexual script theory, boys evidence greater susceptibility to social pressure regarding sexual behavior than girls.
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Mothers' Long-Term Employment Patterns
Alexandra Killewald & Xiaolin Zhou
Harvard Working Paper, December 2015
Abstract:
Previous research on maternal employment has disproportionately focused on married, college-educated mothers and examined either current employment status or postpartum return to employment. Following the life course perspective, we instead conceptualize maternal careers as long-term life course patterns. Using data from the NLSY79 and optimal matching, we document four common employment patterns of American mothers over the first 18 years of maternity. About two-thirds follow steady patterns, either full-time employment (38 percent) or steady nonemployment (24 percent). The rest experience “mixed” patterns: long-term part-time employment (20 percent), or a multiyear period of nonemployment following maternity, then a return to employment (18 percent). Consistent employment following maternity, either full-time or part-time, is characteristic of women with more economic advantages. Women who experience consistent nonemployment disproportionately lack a high school degree, while women with return to employment following a long break tend to be younger with lower wages prior to maternity. Race is one of the few predictors of whether a mother is consistently employed full time versus part time: consistent part-time labor is distinctive to white women. Our results support studying maternal employment across the economic spectrum, considering motherhood as a long-term characteristic, and employing research approaches that reveal the qualitative distinctness of particular employment patterns.