Caregiver
The Production of Human Capital: Endowments, Investments and Fertility
Anna Aizer & Flávio Cunha
NBER Working Paper, September 2012
Abstract:
We study how endowments, investments and fertility interact to produce human capital in childhood. We begin by providing empirical support for two key features of existing models of human capital: that investments and existing human capital are complements in the production of later human capital (dynamic complementarity) and that parents invest more in children with higher endowments due to the complementarity between endowments and investments (static complementarity). For the former, we exploit an exogenous source of investment, the launch of Head Start in 1966, and estimate greater gains from preschool in the IQ of those with the highest stocks of early human capital, consistent with dynamic complementarity. For the latter, we are able to overcome the potential endogeneity and measurement error associated with traditional measures of endowment based on health at birth. When we do, we find that parents invest more in highly endowed children. Moreover, we find that the degree of reinforcement increases with family size. Thus, an increase in quantity leads not only to a decline in average quality (the quantity-quality tradeoff) but to an increase in the variation in quality, due to both greater variation in endowments (from more children) and greater reinforcing investments. These findings can be explained by extending the quantity-quality trade-off model to include heterogeneous child endowments and parental preferences that feature complementarity between quality and quantity and moderate aversion to inequality in child human capital within the household.
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Negative Relations Between Pacifier Use and Emotional Competence
Paula Niedenthal et al.
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, September/October 2012, Pages 387-394
Abstract:
Research in psychology and neuroscience suggests that facial mimicry plays a causal role in understanding facial expression of emotion. Accurate understanding of facial emotion, in turn, grounds emotional development. Are pacifiers, which disrupt facial mimicry in the user, associated with compromised emotional development? We examined facial mimicry in children and found that duration of pacifier use was associated with reduced facial mimicry in boys. In two questionnaire studies of young adults, pacifier use also predicted lower perspective taking and emotional intelligence in males. Pacifier use did not predict these emotion processing skills in girls. Future confirmatory studies are proposed.
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Stacy De Coster
Sociological Quarterly, Autumn 2012, Pages 585-609
Abstract:
This article develops a theoretical model that links the gendered ideologies and work and family roles of mothers to juvenile delinquency. I test the model using the National Survey of Children and covariance structure analysis. The results demonstrate that adolescents of mothers who are employed and hold nontraditional ideologies, as well as those whose mothers are homemakers and hold traditional ideologies, are less likely than others to be delinquent. This is because their mothers are not susceptible to distress, enabling them to foster emotional bonds with their children. Emotional bonds ultimately protect youths from delinquent peer associations and delinquency.
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Pregnancy Intentions and Parents' Psychological Well-Being
Jessica Houston Su
Journal of Marriage and Family, October 2012, Pages 1182-1196
Abstract:
Extant research suggests that parents are more depressed than childless adults, yet the role of pregnancy intentions is largely absent from the discussion. Using 2 waves of data from the National Survey of Families and Households (n = 825 women, n = 889 men), the author found that pregnancy intentions are an important consideration for parents' well-being. The results suggest that unintended births are associated with increased depressive symptoms among fathers and decreased happiness among mothers. This association persisted even after accounting for union status and measures of depressive symptoms and happiness prior to the birth. The author also investigated the social, psychological, and economic mechanisms that explain this relationship. Self-efficacy and financial strain partially explain the link between unintended births and poorer well-being.
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Maternal Religious Involvement and Breastfeeding Initiation and Duration
Amy Burdette & Natasha Pilkauskas
American Journal of Public Health, October 2012, Pages 1865-1868
Abstract:
Although religious involvement is associated with a number of beneficial health outcomes, few studies have investigated whether religious involvement is associated with breastfeeding behaviors. Our analyses of 2 waves of data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 4 166) indicate that mothers who frequently attend religious services are more likely to initiate breastfeeding than are mothers who never attend services. Understanding religious variations in breastfeeding may allow public health officials to more effectively target vulnerable populations.
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Early adversity and inflammation in young adulthood
E. Raposa, J. Bower & C. Hammen
Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, September 2012, Pages S48-S49
Abstract:
Early adversity has been associated with a variety of negative health outcomes in adulthood, and inflammatory processes are thought to play an important role in these effects. However, few studies have examined whether the effects of early adversity on inflammatory processes are evident early in life. Moreover, research to-date has largely relied on retrospective reports of early adversity. The current study sought to address these issues by examining the prospective effects of concurrent reports of early adversity before child age 5 on levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) in young adulthood. Analyses utilized multiple time-points from a longitudinal study that followed 444 mother-child pairs from pregnancy to offspring age 25. Early adversity was measured using mothers' reports of maternal mental health, family income, parental criminality, parental conflict, and parental discipline strategies at several timepoints before child age 5. Plasma CRP was measured at youth age 25. Overall levels of childhood adversity by age 5 predicted significantly higher CRP levels in young adulthood (p < .05), controlling for smoking status, asthma, diabetes, and BMI. Moreover, parental discipline strategies (p < .05) and family income (p < .005) were the strongest individual predictors of CRP. Results suggest that the effects of concurrent reports of early adversity on inflammation are evident as early as young adulthood. Findings have important implications for understanding and preventing the long-term negative consequences of early adversity on physical health.
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Brought Up to Rebel in the Sixties: Birth Order Irrelevant, Parental Worldview Decisive
Tor Egil Førland, Trine Rogg Korsvik & Knut-Andreas Christophersen
Political Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In Born to Rebel 1997 [1996] and subsequent works Frank Sulloway asserts that laterborns are more supportive of radical rebellions than are firstborns. Failure to replicate his historical cases and lack of significant sibling differences in contemporary studies of personality have produced fierce debate and grave doubts about the theory. It has yet to find robust support from studies of contemporary rebellions. Using retrospective survey data on the 1960s radicalization from 1,246 former students at the University of Oslo, we find no effect of birth order on who became student radicals. What we find are strong effects on political orientation of conventional radicalizing factors: upbringing in an urban environment and in particular in a home with radical parents. Within the group of radicals, birth order did not increase the propensity for political protest activity such as demonstrations and civil disobedience. Laterborns moreover had no higher proclivity than firstborns to apolitical protest behavior such as using cannabis or letting males' hair grow. Coming on top of concerns about the empirical support for other parts of the theory, our findings indicate that Sulloway's contested claim about the extrafamilial effects of birth order is not viable.
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A Sudden Transition: Household Changes for Middle Aged U.S. Women in the Twentieth Century
Emily Merchant, Brian Gratton & Myron Gutmann
Population Research and Policy Review, October 2012, Pages 703-726
Abstract:
Between 1900 and 1990, the percentage of U.S. white women aged 40-69 living with a child of their own fell from 63 to 27 %, with three-fourths of that change occurring between 1940 and 1960. Historical census data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series and longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics allow an historical and contemporary examination of co-residence patterns among these women. Analysis reveals three eras: a system of co-residence in the early twentieth century, a sudden transition toward separate households at mid century, and the maintenance of that separate household system thereafter. The scholarly literature features cultural, demographic, and economic explanations for the long-term decline in co-residence, but has given little attention to the rapid mid-century shift. Analysis of IPUMS data confirms the long-term effects of declines in mortality and fertility, and concomitant declines in the age of mothers at last birth, but also points to a sharp drop in the age of children at marriage in the mid-twentieth century. These factors raised the potential for the formation of separate households; this historical era was also a propitious one for separation: income gains for young workers were unprecedented, the labor force participation of married women rose, and immigration fell. Analysis of PSID data from 1968 to 2009 confirms the salience of children's socioeconomic circumstances - particularly their marriage and employment prospects but also the increasing availability of higher education - in maintaining the separate household system. While the data analyzed allow only inferences about cultural factors, the resiliency of the new household system, even in periods of economic decline, suggests that it is now likely buttressed by strong normative views.
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R.M. Pearson et al.
Infant Behavior and Development, December 2012, Pages 613-626
Abstract:
Both prenatal and postnatal maternal depression are independently associated with an increased risk of adverse infant development. The impact of postnatal depression on infants may be mediated through the effect of depression in reducing maternal responsiveness. However, the mechanisms underlying the effect of prenatal depression are unclear. Using longitudinal data from over 900 mother-infant pairs in a UK birth cohort (ALSPAC), we found that women with high depressive symptom scores during mid pregnancy, but NOT when their infants were 8 months, had a 30% increased risk of low maternal responsiveness when the infant was 12 months compared to women with consistently low depression. This may provide a mechanism to explain the independent association between prenatal depression and poorer infant development.
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Gender differences in the effect of breastfeeding on adult psychological well-being
Noriko Cable et al.
European Journal of Public Health, October 2012, Pages 653-658
Background: Little is known about whether the positive effect of breastfeeding on child health extends to adult psychological adjustment. We hypothesized that breastfed babies would have higher psychological well-being in adulthood in relation to the pathway of childhood psychosocial adjustment.
Methods: We used the available cases with normal birthweight from the National Child Development Study (NCDS, N = 7304, born in 1958) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70, N = 6205, born in 1970). Childhood psychosocial adjustment was assessed by the child's teacher, using the Bristol Social Adjustment Guides for the NCDS and the Rutter Behaviour Scale for the BCS70. Adult psychological well-being was defined in terms of measures of emotional distress and self-efficacy. In this study, we controlled the effects of socio-demographic factors at birth: maternal age and educational status, two-parenthood and being a first-born child. We used path analysis to test life-course pathways between breastfeeding and adult psychological well-being independent of socio-demographic factors at birth and the role childhood psychosocial adjustment.
Results: After accounting for the effects of the socio-demographic factors at birth, being breastfed indirectly contributed to adult psychological well-being among women through the pathway from childhood psychosocial adjustment. Moreover, this was directly associated with better psychological well-being in adulthood among women from the BCS70. Being breastfed was not associated with psychological outcomes amongst men in either cohort.
Conclusions: Being breastfed contributed to psychological outcomes in women, especially from the later born cohort. Our findings suggest that being breastfed can be important for women's psychological well-being throughout the lifecourse.
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Prenatal Investments, Breastfeeding, and Birth Order
Kasey Buckles & Shawna Kolka
University of Notre Dame Working Paper, June 2012
Objective: Using a panel data set that allows us to observe mothers' behavior across births, we show differences in investments in health and in the incidence of breastfeeding by birth order.
Methods: Data are from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) Child and Young Adult Survey, which provides detailed information on pre- and postnatal behaviors of women from the NLSY79. The sample includes births between 1973 and 2010. We use fixed effects regression models to estimate within-mother differences in pre- and post-natal behaviors across births.
Results: Mothers are significantly and increasingly less likely to take prenatal vitamins, reduce salt intake, receive prenatal care in the first trimester, and breastfeed for higher-order births. Mothers are 7 percent less likely to take prenatal vitamins in a fourth or higher-order birth than in a first and are 11 percent less likely to receive early prenatal care. Mothers are 15 percent less likely to breastfeed a second-born child than a first, and are 21 percent less likely to breastfeed a fourth or higher-order child. These results are not explained by changing attitudes toward investments over time.
Conclusion: Our results show that women are less likely to make investments in their health and that of their children in higher-order pregnancies. This finding suggests that providers may want to target efforts to increase these behaviors at women with higher parity. The results also identify a potential mechanism for the emergence of differences in health and other outcomes across birth orders.
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Go naked: Diapers affect infant walking
Whitney Cole, Jesse Lingeman & Karen Adolph
Developmental Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In light of cross-cultural and experimental research highlighting effects of childrearing practices on infant motor skill, we asked whether wearing diapers, a seemingly innocuous childrearing practice, affects infant walking. Diapers introduce bulk between the legs, potentially exacerbating infants' poor balance and wide stance. We show that walking is adversely affected by old-fashioned cloth diapers, and that even modern disposable diapers - habitually worn by most infants in the sample - incur a cost relative to walking naked. Infants displayed less mature gait patterns and more missteps and falls while wearing diapers. Thus, infants' own diapers constitute an ongoing biomechanical perturbation while learning to walk. Furthermore, shifts in diapering practices may have contributed to historical and cross-cultural differences in infant walking.
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Chun Bun Lam, Susan McHale & Ann Crouter
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
The development and adjustment correlates of parent-child social (parent, child, and others present) and dyadic time (only parent and child present) from age 8 to 18 were examined. Mothers, fathers, and firstborns and secondborns from 188 White families participated in both home and nightly phone interviews. Social time declined across adolescence, but dyadic time with mothers and fathers peaked in early and middle adolescence, respectively. In addition, secondborns' social time declined more slowly than firstborns', and gendered time use patterns were more pronounced in boys and in opposite-sex sibling dyads. Finally, youths who spent more dyadic time with their fathers, on average, had higher general self-worth, and changes in social time with fathers were positively linked to changes in social competence.
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Who's the Boss? The Political Economy of Unpaid Care Work and Food Sharing in Brooklyn, USA
Tamara Mose Brown
Feminist Economics, Summer 2012, Pages 1-24
Abstract:
Over the last two decades, scholars have situated paid and unpaid care work as an important component in the US economic infrastructure. Until recently, scholars have neglected to address the sociological significance of the cooking and sharing of food ("foodways") as part of the productive unpaid work of caregivers. This article details the lives of West Indian childcare providers in Brooklyn, New York and places their experiences in the context of economic structures. The study shows how childcare providers share food with their charges to establish forms of control and resist the subordination inherent in childcare work. By studying the unpaid care work of food sharing through participant observation and interviews during 2004-7, this research reveals blurred boundaries between reproductive and productive work. It also analyzes how childcare providers resist and momentarily invert the hierarchy of employer households, shaping their workdays beyond the responsibilities of taking care of children.
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Ambivalence Toward Adult Children: Differences Between Mothers and Fathers
Karl Pillemer et al.
Journal of Marriage and Family, October 2012, Pages 1101-1113
Abstract:
The authors examined how ambivalence toward adult children within the same family differs between mothers and fathers and whether patterns of maternal and paternal ambivalence can be explained by the same set of predictors. Using data collected in the Within-Family Differences Study, they compared older married mothers' and fathers' (N = 129) assessments of ambivalence toward each of their adult children (N = 444). Fathers reported higher levels of ambivalence overall. Both mothers and fathers reported lower ambivalence toward children who were married, better educated, and who they perceived to hold similar values; however, the effects of marital status and education were more pronounced for fathers, whereas the effect of children's value congruence was more pronounced for mothers. Fathers reported lower ambivalence toward daughters than sons, whereas mothers reported less ambivalence toward sons than daughters.
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Does Adolescents' Disclosure to Their Parents Matter for Their Academic Adjustment?
Cecilia Cheung, Eva Pomerantz & Wei Dong
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
The role of adolescents' disclosure to their parents in their academic adjustment was examined in a study of 825 American and Chinese adolescents (mean age = 12.73 years). Four times over the seventh and eighth grades, adolescents reported on their spontaneous disclosure of everyday activities to their parents, the quality of their relationships with their parents, and their parents' autonomy support and control. Information about multiple dimensions of adolescents' academic adjustment (e.g., learning strategies, autonomous vs. controlled motivation, and grades) was also obtained. Both American and Chinese adolescents' disclosure predicted their enhanced academic adjustment over time. However, when American adolescents disclosed in a negative context (e.g., a poor parent-child relationship or controlling parenting), their autonomous (vs. controlled) motivation was undermined.
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Adoption Subsidies and Placement Outcomes for Children in Foster Care
Kasey Buckles
Journal of Human Resources, forthcoming
Abstract:
Over 400,000 children in the United States are currently in foster care, many of whom are at risk for long-lasting emotional and health problems. Research suggests that adoption may be one of the more promising options for the placement of these children. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, which provided federal funds for monthly adoption subsidies, was designed to promote adoptions of special-needs children and children in foster care. Using data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting Systems for 2000-2006, I consider the effects of these adoption subsidies on the number of adoptions and on time spent in foster care. Because subsidies may be determined endogenously, I employ an identification strategy that exploits state variation in the age at which children are eligible for federal subsidy funds. I find that the number of adoptions increases when children become subsidy eligible, and that most of the increase is from adoptions by foster parents. Conditional on adoption, subsidy eligibility increases the hazard of discharge from foster care. The fact that adoption subsidies are cheaper than the cost of keeping a child in foster care means that removing foster parents' disincentives for adoption could generate substantial cost savings.
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Joanne Cox et al.
American Journal of Public Health, October 2012, Pages 1879-1885
Objectives: This study described a medical home model for adolescent mothers and their children, and their 1- and 2-year preventive care, repeat pregnancy, and psychosocial outcomes.
Methods: In this prospective, single cohort demonstration project, adolescent mothers (14-18 years old) and their children received care in a medical home. Demographic, medical and social processes, and outcomes data were collected at enrollment through 24 months. Change over time and predictors of repeat pregnancy were analyzed.
Results: A total of 181 adolescents enrolled, with 79.6% participating for 2 years. At 2 years, 90.2% of children were completely immunized. Children and adolescent mothers met standards for health care visits, and adolescent condom use improved. Rates of cumulative repeat pregnancy were 14.7% and 24.6%, school attendance 77.6% and 68.7%, and employment 21.2% and 32.3% at 1 and 2 years, respectively.
Conclusions: A medical home model with comprehensive and integrated medical care and social services can effectively address the complex needs of adolescent parents and their children.
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Contributions of Qualitative Research to Understanding Savings for Children and Youth
Margaret Sherraden et al.
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper explores contributions of qualitative research to saving theory for children, youth, and parents in children's development account (CDAs) programs. It brings together findings from three studies: (1) elementary school age children saving for college, (2) youth transitioning from foster care saving for education and other purposes, and (3) mothers saving for their toddlers' future college. Findings suggest that children, youth, and parents find CDAs helpful in accumulating savings. CDAs motivate and facilitate saving in ways that reflect developmental stages. Accumulating savings has positive economic and psychological meaning for CDA participants. CDAs overcome some obstacles in saving for the three groups, but other barriers remain, especially income flows, debt, and emergencies.
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Does Cosleeping Contribute to Lower Testosterone Levels in Fathers? Evidence from the Philippines
Lee Gettler et al.
PLoS ONE, September 2012
Abstract:
Because cross-species evidence suggests that high testosterone (T) may interfere with paternal investment, the relationships between men's transition to parenting and changes in their T are of growing interest. Studies of human males suggest that fathers who provide childcare often have lower T than uninvolved fathers, but no studies to date have evaluated how nighttime sleep proximity between fathers and their offspring may affect T. Using data collected in 2005 and 2009 from a sample of men (n = 362; age 26.0 ± 0.3 years in 2009) residing in metropolitan Cebu, Philippines, we evaluated fathers' T based on whether they slept on the same surface as their children (same surface cosleepers), slept on a different surface but in the same room (roomsharers), or slept separately from their children (solitary sleepers). A large majority (92%) of fathers in this sample reported practicing same surface cosleeping. Compared to fathers who slept solitarily, same surface cosleeping fathers had significantly lower evening (PM) T and also showed a greater diurnal decline in T from waking to evening (both p<0.05). Among men who were not fathers at baseline (2005), fathers who were cosleepers at follow-up (2009) experienced a significantly greater longitudinal decline in PM T over the 4.5-year study period (p<0.01) compared to solitary sleeping fathers. Among these same men, baseline T did not predict fathers' sleeping arrangements at follow-up (p>0.2). These results are consistent with previous findings indicating that daytime father-child interaction contributes to lower T among fathers. Our findings specifically suggest that close sleep proximity between fathers and their offspring results in greater longitudinal decreases in T as men transition to fatherhood and lower PM T overall compared to solitary sleeping fathers.