Economic and Social Mobility New Directions for Data, Research, and Policy (2025) / Chapter Skim
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2 Early Life and Family
2 Early Life and Family
Pages 45-73
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From page 45... ...
Intergenerational mobility focuses on human capital or labor market outcomes (i.e., occupation or earnings) in adulthood.
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From page 46... ...
. In addition, each of these periods is itself influenced by laws and policies, institutions, social norms, and social and economic conditions, which shape intergenerational mobility differently by race and ethnicity, immigration status, socioeconomic status, geography or state of residence, and other characteristics.
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From page 47... ...
Economic support policies and programs show promise for increasing upward mobility across generations, while the evidence on parenting interventions shows limited impact. Understanding both the landscape of how early life and family circumstances shape children's life trajectories and the policies that may show impact in improving outcomes over the life course is essential for a policy-relevant research agenda on economic and social mobility.
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From page 48... ...
. Unintended pregnancies are strongly associated with mediators of intergenerational mobility, including adverse health, environmental, and economic circumstances in childhood.
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From page 49... ...
FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES AT BIRTH AND SUBSEQUENT FAMILY EXPERIENCES The circumstances in which children are conceived, born, and raised vary considerably in the U.S. population.
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, in turn, is thought to be a key mechanism linking nonmarital births to subsequent family dynamics and child development (Cherlin & Seltzer, 2014; McLanahan & Sawhill, 2015; Mitchell et al., 2015; Osborne & McLanahan, 2007; Selter, 2019)
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From page 51... ...
Research shows that the primary dividing factor in the family formation context is educational attainment; in particular, those with at least a college degree exhibit markedly different fertility and family formation patterns and, in turn, family contexts and child-rearing environments, from those of individuals with less educational attainment (Kearney, 2023; McLanahan, 2004; McLanahan & Jacobsen, 2014)
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From page 52... ...
found a relatively small overall association between family structure and educational achievement among Black adolescents, albeit with some variation by family economic resources, suggesting that any impact of family structure might be relatively muted for Black Americans. Other studies suggest that Black families experience smaller disadvantages associated with single motherhood than White families, whereas Hispanic families experience larger disadvantages.
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From page 53... ...
. Moreover, the committee is not aware of studies to directly identify causal links between family structure and intergenerational mobility at the individual level, although Bloome (2017)
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From page 54... ...
A growing body of evidence suggests that even mild shocks during the prenatal and early childhood periods -- which are disproportionately experienced by families of lower socioeconomic status -- can have lifelong, potentially causal consequences, although these consequences may vary by genetic and (subsequent) environmental factors, including family resources and associated exposures that further influence social and biophysiological development (Aizer & Currie, 2014; Almond & Currie, 2011; Almond et al., 2012, 2018; Torche & Nobles, 2024)
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From page 55... ...
. In short, extant research indicates that, across childhood, parental warmth, responsiveness, supportiveness, appropriate monitoring and supervision, flexibility, and autonomy-granting are associated with better socioemotional health, cognitive skills and academic achievement, and educational attainment.
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From page 56... ...
. Notably, however, observed differences in parenting behaviors by race and ethnicity and immigrant status are likely confounded by differences in parental socioeconomic status and associated differential selection into fertility, family formation, and subsequent child-rearing contexts, as well as by experiences with racism and discrimination (which are typically unobserved in existing quantitative studies)
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From page 57... ...
. When considering the evidence linking parenting behaviors with children's subsequent development, and its potential implications for economic and social mobility, it is crucial to recognize that the vast majority of research on parenting behaviors has focused on mothers; considerably less attention had been paid to the behaviors of resident and nonresident fathers (Cabrera et al., 2018)
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From page 58... ...
. That is, in addition to facing more stringent budget constraints, parents of lower socioeconomic status may have less information, knowledge, skills, social connections, and opportunities for selecting high-quality options to promote child development than those of higher socioeconomic status (Case & Paxson, 2002; Kalil & Ryan, 2020; Reeves, 2018)
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From page 59... ...
. Given substantial differences in the contexts to which families of higher and lower socioeconomic status are exposed, socioeconomic status–related disparities in development and well-being emerge in the prenatal period and persist throughout life, spanning physical and mental health, cognitive and socioemotional functioning, educational achievement and attainment, employment and earnings, and a host of other domains (Berger et al., 2009; Bradbury et al., 2019; Case et al., 2002; Fletcher & Wolfe, 2016; Washbrook et al., 2014)
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EFFICACY OF EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY POLICIES AND PROGRAMS IN SHAPING THE DETERMINANTS OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL MOBILITY A range of policies and programs has the potential to influence the circumstances in which pregnancy occurs and children are born, as well as children's subsequent family and early life experiences, with potential implications for their health, development, and well-being and, thereby, life chances. The two major approaches to reducing unplanned (and, in particular, teen)
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From page 61... ...
, there are strong theoretical reasons to suggest that access to contraception and abortion have implications for upward mobility of disadvantaged children. While this body of research has not directly examined intergenerational mobility as an outcome, it has found that greater access to contraception affected determinants of intergenerational mobility.
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From page 62... ...
Beyond access to contraception and abortion, policies and programs that promote marriage and healthy relationships have sought to increase the proportion of children born within marriage, to encourage marriage once pregnancy or childbirth has occurred, and to assist couples in engaging in high-quality relationships and maintaining their marriages. These programs have largely been targeted to populations of lower socioeconomic status, which are disproportionately at risk of nonmarital birth, parental union dissolution, and family complexity, including multiplepartner fertility.
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From page 63... ...
This heterogeneity makes it difficult to evaluate the efficacy of parenting programs writ large. With these caveats in mind, evidence suggests that, on the whole, parenting interventions, including most home visiting programs, have shown inconsistent and limited impacts on child development and well-being, likely at least in part due to low take-up and engagement rates, although direct effects on parents have been somewhat more promising (Berger & Font, 2015; Duncan et al., 2023; Kalil & Ryan, 2024; Ryan & Padilla, 2019)
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From page 64... ...
. However, data limitations and barriers to identifying suitable counterfactual conditions against which to isolate causal effects of child support receipt on children's developmental and, in particular, on their adult outcomes, have precluded causal estimates of the long-term effects of child support receipt.
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From page 65... ...
Expanded in utero and early childhood access to and participation in SNAP/FSP has been shown to result in better adult health and greater human capital (educational attainment and occupational status) , earnings and income, economic self-sufficiency (greater employment and less social welfare program participation)
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. Beyond family economic resources and the home environment, high-quality early childhood education and care programs may benefit child development and thereby have implications for subsequent economic and social mobility.
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. DATA LIMITATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES Recent advances in linking longitudinal administrative data systems have greatly expanded the ability to assess economic and social mobility patterns across generations and to CH 2 - 23
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As this chapter highlights, whether pregnancies and childbearing are intended, parental resources, such as time and money, and parenting behaviors are likely important determinants of child development and well-being; adult health; social and economic well-being; and intergenerational mobility, especially upward mobility for children from disadvantaged households. Yet, examining how policies and programs affect (potentially causal)
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From page 69... ...
Ongoing data collection on all children born to cohort members -- who could be followed from the in utero period onward and assessed at relatively frequent intervals representing key developmental stages of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood -- would greatly enhance research on intergenerational economic and social mobility. SUMMARY, KEY CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS The family plays a critical role in the mobility process, serving as the primary institution through which investments are made in children, thus shaping human capital development from the prenatal period onward.
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From page 70... ...
Inequalities emerge before children are born, as disparities in socioeconomic status affect children's prenatal environments and have lifelong consequences for social and biophysiological development. Although racial/ethnic differences in parenting behaviors have been well documented, these differences may be confounded by disparities in parental socioeconomic status and associated differential selection into parenthood, family formation, and subsequent child-rearing contexts, as well as by experiences with racism and discrimination (which are typically unobserved in existing quantitative studies)
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From page 71... ...
In contrast, parenting interventions have shown inconsistent and limited impacts on child development and well-being, suggesting that such programs, even if scaled, are unlikely to have large populationlevel effects. Historical evidence on the benefits of early childhood education, such as Head Start, for upward social mobility is promising, showing positive effects from childhood through adulthood across a wide range of developmental, educational, social, and economic domains.
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From page 72... ...
● More fully investigate the family context, parenting behavior, and child development mechanisms through which economic support policies may influence economic and social mobility. ● Develop and test the causal assumptions implied by comprehensive models of economic and social mobility that incorporate biological, social, economic, and contextual factors related to early life and family.
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From page 73... ...
Both the PSID and the FFCWS need to be maintained and further expanded to include detailed parenting and child development data on subsequent generations of all children born to respondents. Children of respondents need to be followed from the in utero period onward and assessed regularly at intervals representing key developmental stages of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.
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