Duty of Care
Car Seats as Contraception
Jordan Nickerson & David Solomon
MIT Working Paper, July 2020
Abstract:
Since 1977, U.S. states have passed laws steadily raising the age for which a child must ride in a car safety seat. These laws significantly raise the cost of having a third child, as many regular-sized cars cannot fit three child seats in the back. Using census data and state-year variation in laws, we estimate that when women have two children of ages requiring mandated car seats, they have a lower annual probability of giving birth by 0.73 percentage points. Consistent with a causal channel, this effect is limited to third child births, is concentrated in households with access to a car, and is larger when a male is present (when both front seats are likely to be occupied). We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year, and 145,000 fewer births since 1980, with 90% of this decline being since 2000.
Division of Baby Care in Heterosexual and Lesbian Parents: Expectations Versus Reality
Esra Ascigil et al.
Journal of Marriage and Family, forthcoming
Method: We longitudinally examined (a) expectancy violation in division of baby care among 47 heterosexual and lesbian couples transitioning to first‐time parenthood (total N = 94 participants) and (b) the associations between expectancy violation and relationship quality at 3 and 10‐months postpartum.
Results: We found that expectations matched reality for lesbian couples, but not for heterosexual couples: Heterosexual mothers did more baby care than they expected, and fathers did less. Heterosexual birth mothers were less satisfied when they did more baby care than they expected, whereas fathers were both less satisfied and less invested in their relationship when they did more baby care than they expected. In contrast, for lesbian birth mothers and nonbirth mothers, doing more baby care than anticipated was not associated with postpartum relationship quality. These results remained even after controlling for prenatal relationship quality and timing of postpartum assessments.
When Play Becomes Work: Child Labor Laws in the Era of 'Kidfluencers'
Marina Masterson
University of Pennsylvania Law Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the past few years, “kidfluencers,” or children with large social media followings, have been integral to the rise of an $8-billion social media advertising industry. The most successful kidfluencers make up to $26 million in a year by posting sponsored content and monetizing ad space on their social media pages. Because kidfluencers have no legal right to these earnings or safe working conditions, the risk of exploitation is extreme and immediate. Still, the issue is nuanced because parents significantly control the production of their children’s content, and states are limited in how much they may regulate a parent’s decisions in raising their child. This Comment addresses how kidfluencers fit in the child labor regime, specifically by comparing child actor law. Child actors are not covered by federal child labor laws, resulting in a patchwork of state regulations. This Comment proposes state legislation that would financially protect kidfluencers. However, it concedes that certain common child actor regulations, like those involving work permits and workplace conditions, are difficult, if not impossible, to impose on kidfluencers. Ultimately, current child actor laws should not simply be expanded to include social media influencers, but instead, tailored legislation is needed.
School age effects of minding the baby -- an attachment-based home-visiting intervention -- on parenting and child behaviors
Amalia Londono Tobon et al.
Development and Psychopathology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Multiple interventions have been developed to improve the caregiver-child relationship as a buffer to the effects of early life adversity and toxic stress. However, relatively few studies have evaluated the long-term effects of these early childhood interventions, particularly on parenting and childhood behaviors. Here we describe the early school-age follow-up results of a randomized controlled trial of Minding the Baby (r) (MTB), a reflective, attachment-based, trauma-informed, preventive home-visiting intervention for first-time mothers and their infants. Results indicate that mothers who participated in MTB are less likely to show impaired mentalizing compared to control mothers two to eight years after the intervention ended. Additionally, MTB mothers have lower levels of hostile and coercive parenting, and their children have lower total and externalizing problem behavior scores when compared to controls at follow-up. We discuss our findings in terms of their contribution to understanding the long-term parenting and childhood socio-emotional developmental effects of early preventive interventions for stressed populations.
Converging Educational Differences in Parents' Time Use in Developmental Child Care
Yun Cha & Hyunjoon Park
Journal of Marriage and Family, forthcoming
Method: Using the 2003-2017 American Time Use Survey (N = 30,072), ordinary least squares regression models estimate minutes per day mothers and fathers with children under age 5 spend on developmental child care, after accounting for demographic characteristics, family income, and hours at work. The interaction terms between parental education and years estimate the trend in the educational gap.
Results: The educational disparity in developmental child care has narrowed between 2003 and 2017 due to opposite trends at both ends of the educational spectrum: whereas time spent among parents with a bachelor's degree or higher has stalled, time spent among counterparts with high school or less education has continuously increased. For mothers, the converging trend is partly attributable to differential trends in hours at work by education.
Tots and Teens: How does Child's age Influence Maternal Labor Supply and Child Care Response to the Earned Income Tax Credit?
Katherine Michelmore & Natasha Pilkauskas
Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Building on earlier work that shows that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has a substantial positive effect on maternal labor supply, we show that labor supply effects are concentrated among mothers with children under age three, with only moderate effects of the EITC on the labor supply of mothers with teenagers. These increases in labor supply are coupled with large increases in the use and cost of child care among mothers with children under age three. Results highlight the importance of considering heterogeneous treatment effects of policy and have implications for child care policy and other family policy.