Checking on Kids
Racial Discrimination in Child Protection
Jason Baron et al.
NBER Working Paper, July 2023
Abstract:
Ten percent of Black children in the U.S. spend time in foster care -- twice the rate of white children. We estimate unwarranted disparities in foster care placement decisions, adjusting for differences in the potential for future maltreatment by leveraging the quasi-random assignment of cases to investigators. Using a sample of nearly 220,000 maltreatment investigations, we find that Black children are 1.7 percentage points (50%) more likely to be placed into foster care following an investigation than white children conditional on subsequent maltreatment potential. This disparity is entirely driven by white investigators and by cases where maltreatment potential is present, in which Black children are twice as likely to be placed as white children (12% vs. 6%). These results suggest white children may be harmed by “under-placement” in high-risk situations via the leniency that white investigators afford to white parents. Leveraging the additional quasi-random assignment of hotline call screeners, we find that both screeners and investigators are responsible for unwarranted disparities in placement, with investigators amplifying the disparity for cases with subsequent maltreatment potential and mitigating it for lower-risk cases. This finding highlights the importance of “systems-based” analyses of inequity in high-stakes decisions, where discrimination can compound across multiple decision-makers.
Impact of the expanded child tax credit and its expiration on adult psychological well-being
Eunho Cha, Jiwan Lee & Stacie Tao
Social Science & Medicine, forthcoming
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated stress and psychological distress among adults with children, with certain populations experiencing a greater mental health burden. The expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) under the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act provided temporary relief to families with children through monthly payments from July through December 2021, offering a unique opportunity to examine the impact of a near-universal cash transfers on adult psychological well-being in the United States. We use the Household Pulse Survey Waves 28–41 (April 14, 2021 to January 10, 2022) to analyze the CTC expansion and Waves 34–42 (July 21, 2021 to February 7, 2022) to examine the expiration of the expanded CTC to investigate the effects of the expanded CTC and its expiration on psychological distress of adults in households with children and its differential effects by gender, education, marital status, and race and ethnicity (N = 167,772). We employ a difference-in-difference methodology by leveraging the policy-induced variation in the additional credits that households are eligible for. Our results indicate that the expanded CTC led to a significant reduction in the percentage of having at least mild symptoms of psychological distress in the overall sample, especially among female, single, married, and Hispanic adults. No significant effects were found on the rate of moderate or severe psychological distress symptoms, suggesting that more severe forms of psychological distress may require more comprehensive and long-term interventions. We find that more adults experienced moderate to severe psychological distress after the monthly CTC payments ended. We discuss the role of the expanded CTC in buffering mental health crises during the pandemic and the implications of the heterogeneous policy effects by subgroups.
Mating-related stimuli induce rapid shifts in fathers' assessments of infants
James Rilling, Paige Gallagher & Minwoo Lee
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
A common life history theory trade-off is that which males face between mating effort and parental effort. This trade-off is observed across species, among individuals within a species, and within individuals across their lifespan. Recent studies suggest the possibility of more rapid trade-offs or motivational shifts in response to transient aspects of the social environment. We were interested in whether exposure to mating-related stimuli would negatively impact men's evaluation of parental-related stimuli and vice-versa, and whether this response would differ between fathers and non-fathers. In two separate experiments, a total of 160 heterosexual or bisexual men rated how appealing they found 40 images of attractive infants and 40 images of attractive adult females. Half of all participants viewed infant images before viewing female images, and the other half viewed female images before infant images. In both experiments, fathers rated infant stimuli as more appealing than did non-fathers when infants were presented before females, but not when infants were presented after females. That is, priming fathers with female stimuli negatively impacted their ratings of infants. On the other hand, priming men with pictures of cute infants before viewing females did not impact ratings of female pictures, in either fathers or non-fathers. Nor did priming fathers with pictures of another highly rewarding stimulus - highly appealing foods - decrease their ratings of infants. The negative effect of female pictures on fathers' subsequent ratings of infant stimuli is consistent with the possibility that the female pictures activated motivational systems related to mating effort, which in turn inhibited motivational systems related to parental effort, rendering the infant stimuli less appealing. Our findings suggest that human fathers may be susceptible to transient shifts in life history strategy as a function of their immediate social environment.
Parenting as a Nonshared Environmental Factor: A Sibling Barricade Analysis
Bridget Joyner-Carpanini & Kevin Beaver
Crime & Delinquency, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research attempting to uncover sources of nonshared environmental influences on behavioral development has highlighted the importance of differential parenting. One way in which parenting may be conceived of as a nonshared environment but has yet to be fully examined in the literature, is through sibling social comparisons. The current study addresses this gap by conducting a series of sibling barricade models examining whether adolescents are affected by their parents’ behaviors toward their siblings. Analyses of the Add Health data supported findings of prior research indicating that parenting is not consistent across siblings, but rather is individualized. Results of the sibling barricade models revealed that differences in parenting toward one child did not, however, explain differences in antisocial behavior between siblings.
Preventing child welfare reinvolvement: The efficacy of the Reminiscing and Emotion Training intervention
Katherine Edler et al.
Development and Psychopathology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Child maltreatment is a pathogenic relational experience that creates risk for physical and psychological health difficulties throughout the lifespan. The Reminiscing and Emotion Training intervention (RET) was developed to support maltreated children’s healthy development by improving parenting behavior among maltreating mothers. Here, we evaluated whether RET was associated with reductions in child welfare reinvolvement over the course of two years. The sample included 165 maltreating and 83 nonmaltreating mothers and their 3- to 6-year-old children who were enrolled in a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of RET. Maltreating mother–child dyads were randomly assigned to receive RET or an active control condition (community standard [CS]). Nonmaltreating dyads were a separate control group (nonmaltreating control). Comparing CS and RET dyads, there was a significant effect of RET on frequency of child welfare reinvolvement (substantiations and unsubstantiated assessments) during the two years following dyads’ enrollment in the intervention, t(163) = 2.02, p < .05, Cohen’s d = 0.32. There was a significant indirect effect of RET on child welfare reinvolvement through maternal sensitive guidance during reminiscing [95% CI −0.093, −0.007]. Results provide support for the efficacy of RET in preventing child welfare reinvolvement.
Childhood Exposure to Violence and Nurturing Relationships: The Long-Run Effects on Black Men
Dionissi Aliprantis & Kristen Tauber
Federal Reserve Working Paper, July 2023
Abstract:
Black men who witnessed a shooting before turning 12 have household earnings as adults 31 percent lower than those who did not. We present evidence that this gap is causal and is most likely the result of toxic stress; it is not mediated by incarceration and is constant across neighborhood socioeconomic status. Turning to mechanisms related to toxic stress, we study exposure to violence and nurturing relationships during adolescence. Item-anchored indexes synthesize variables on these treatments better than summing positive responses, Item Response Theory, or Principal Components, which all perform similarly. Providing adolescents with nurturing relationships is almost as beneficial as preventing their exposure to violence.
Testing Environmental Effects on Age at Menarche and Sexual Debut within a Genetically Informative Twin Design
George Richardson et al.
Human Nature, June 2023, Pages 324–356
Abstract:
Life-history-derived models of female sexual development propose menarche timing as a key regulatory mechanism driving subsequent sexual behavior. The current research utilized a twin subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; n = 514) to evaluate environmental effects on timings of menarche and sexual debut, as well as address potential confounding of these effects within a genetically informative design. Results show mixed support for each life history model and provide little evidence rearing environment is important in the etiology of individual differences in age at menarche. This research calls into question the underlying assumptions of life-history-derived models of sexual development and highlights the need for more behavior genetic research in this area.