From Neurons to Neighborhoods The Science of Early Childhood Development (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 268-297
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From page 268... ...
Families who occupy different socioeconomic niches because of parental education, income, and occupation have strikingly different capacities to purchase safe housing, nutritious meals, highquality child care, and other opportunities that can foster health, learning, and adaptation (Becker, 1981; Brooks-Gunn et al., 1995~. A two-parent family with one highly paid wage earner who makes it possible for the other parent to stay at home with the children is in an entirely different situation from a single parent with a poverty-level wage, for example (Becker and Lewis, 1973; Mason and Kuhithau, 1992; Timmer et al., 1985~.
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From page 269... ...
We couch the discussion in the context of trends that have altered, in many instances dramatically, the socioeconomic landscape of young children in the United States. We close our discussion of connections between socioeconomic resources and child development by addressing the challenges raised by behavioral geneticists (e.g., Rowe and Rodgers, 1997)
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From page 270... ...
270 FR OM NE UR ONS TO NEIGHB ORHO ODS 80 70 60 50Q In o 40o ~ 30i~ C' 2010 O1975 1 999 Under 1 year old Under 6 6 to 17 years old, years old and none younger FIGURE 10-1 Trends in the proportion of mothers in the labor force, by age of child, 1975-1999. NOTES: Since 1975 data for mothers with children under 1 year of age are not available, the data for this column are from the Tune 1977 Current Population Survey.
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From page 271... ...
The survey does not include measures of child care quality.
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From page 272... ...
The limited evidence that is available suggests that infants and toddlers fare better in working-poor families than in poor families in which the parents do not work or work minimally (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, l999b)
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From page 273... ...
These findings did not appear to be attributable to spouses in more troubled marriages electing to move into shift work. This is, however, an isolated study that needs to be replicated, particularly in light of the fact that many parents are motivated to engage in shift work as a way of keeping child care within the family.
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From page 274... ...
. dData from the National Maternal and Infant Health survey collected in 1989 and 1990, with 1988 as the reference period.
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From page 275... ...
Poverty and Children's Development One of the most consistent associations in developmental science is between economic hardship and compromised child development. The influence of family income, and specifically of poverty, has been of special interest in light of the numerous policies that address poverty in the United States and the intractability of indeed, the increase in the child poverty rated In 1997, some 5.2 million young children (22 percent of all young children)
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From page 276... ...
poverty has increased much more for minority than nonminority children; and (4) children living in poverty are falling farther behind their more affluent peers.
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From page 277... ...
Experimental designs involving manipulation of family incomes are extremely rare. In four income maintenance experiments in the 1960s and 1970s, experimental treatment families received a guaranteed minimum income.
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From page 278... ...
This was true of cognitive outcomes, social behavior, emotional well-being, and child health. While both programs increased the time young children spent in child care 6The Minnesota program enabled families to keep both their wages and a generous amount of their former welfare benefits through an income disregard mechanism.
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From page 279... ...
Nonexperimental Studies Nonexperimental research using longitudinal data has shifted from studying poverty as an unchanging status (poor versus not poor) to understanding how particular characteristics of poverty affect development for different age groups.
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From page 280... ...
" to improve the well-being of younger children in the context of efforts to improve the work effort and earnings of their mothers. The research on parents' mental health reviewed in Chapter 9 and the early intervention literature reviewed in Chapter 13 suggests that a promising answer would involve making the most of the opportunity that welfare reform presents to link families to both mental health and early intervention services.
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From page 281... ...
children had mothers who had not completed high school. In stark contrast, however, the low schooling levels of Hispanic 35 30 25 ~ 20a c' 15 10 5O1974 1 997 Living Living Mothers Mothers Not living in poor in affluent have a work full-time, with two families families college full-year parents education FIGURE 10-3 Trends in the socioeconomic resources of young children, 19741997.
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From page 282... ...
Parental education levels are strongly associated with the home literacy environment, parental teaching styles, and investments in a variety of resources that promote learning (e.g., high-quality child care, educational materials, visits to libraries and museums) (Bradley et al., 1989; Laosa, 1983; Michael, 1972~.
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From page 283... ...
Twoparent family structures have declined much more rapidly among black (a 16 percentage point decline) and Hispanic (18 percentage points)
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From page 284... ...
Nevertheless, this topic remains an area of active controversy among scientists and politicians alike. Role of Genetic Factors As a part of a review of evidence linking differences in family resources to differences in child outcomes, it is critical to address the challenges to this literature that have been raised recently by behavioral geneticists.
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From page 286... ...
Two kinds of evidence suggest that, even net of genetic endowments, family resources have important impacts on child development. These studies have used measures of family socioeconomic status (SES)
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From page 287... ...
of adoptive families, can alter the cognitive development of children who tested in the very low range (IQs between 60 and 86) prior to adoption.
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From page 288... ...
At the same time, by revealing that environmental influences tell only part of the SES story, the evidence also reminds us that genetic influences warrant greater attention in studies that assess the effects of both shared and nonshared family resources on child development. INFLUENCES ON YOUNG CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT The processes by which family resources matter for children's wellbeing have been difficult to elucidate (Belsky et al., 1986; Brooks-Gunn and Duncan, 1997~.
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From page 289... ...
Despite their efforts, however, arrangements for child care, housing, and medical care were often precarious. Any one of a number of events, such as a family or extendedfamily illness, could cause major disruptions to their employment and family lives.
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From page 290... ...
demonstrated that low levels of education, income, and occupational status each make independent contributions to the variation seen in maternal psychological distress. While all socioeconomic dimensions may play a role, most developmental research has emphasized the effects of economic hardship on parents' mental health (McLoyd, 1997~.
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From page 291... ...
Substance abuse constitutes another risk factor associated with decreased mental health and economic hardship among parents (Table 10-1~. Research on children of substance-abusing parents has focused largely on drug exposure during pregnancy and children's subsequent developmental outcomes (Harden, 1998; Mayes, 1995; U.S.
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From page 292... ...
, we also need to understand how different types and manifestations of psychological distress which often occur together and in conjunction with protective factors combine to affect child development. Parental Beliefs Only modest differences have been found in the typical parenting practices and parent-child interactions of low-income and higher-income parents (Miller and Davis, 1997; Radziszewka et al., 1996~.
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From page 293... ...
Further complicating this research are the facts that important parental values (e.g., about academic achievement) do not differ by social class (Warren et al., 1993)
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From page 294... ...
argue that jobs that are routinized, have low autonomy, and provide little opportunity for substantively complex work erode parents' cognitive skills and, in turn, decrease the likelihood that they will provide a cognitively stimulating environment for their children. In a longitudinal study, Parcel and Menaghan (1994)
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From page 295... ...
On balance, however, the evidence suggests that while improved maternal education may have modestly positive effects on early development, the effects of shifting family structures and, to an even greater extent, of maternal employment will depend on a number of accompanying conditions. However, the persistent economic hardship that affects so many children is likely to be highly detrimental, especially during the earliest years of life.
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From page 296... ...
Associations found between parental occupation and children's development suggest that characteristics of employment may have a modest impact on children's development The literature on single-parent family structure shows that children living in single-parent families are at greater risk for poor developmental outcomes compared with children reared in two-parent families, although we have a limited understanding of the processes involved. The research on maternal employment and children's development is generally reassuring to working parents.
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From page 297... ...
It is the setting in which most children first learn to interact with other children on a regular basis, establish bonds with adults other than their parents, receive or fail to receive important inputs for early learning and language development, and experience their initial encounter with a school-like environment. Early and extensive enroliment in child care has become the norm in U.S.
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