Mother and father figures
The Effect of Unpredictable Early Childhood Environments on Parenting in Adulthood
Ohad Szepsenwol et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Life history theory suggests that individual differences in parenting are partially rooted in environmental conditions experienced early in life. Whereas certain conditions should promote increased investment in parenting, unpredictable and/or harsh environments should promote decreased investment in parenting, especially in men. We tested this hypothesis in 3 studies. In Study 1a, we conducted analyses on 112 parents taking part in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA), all of whom have been continuously studied starting before they were born. Parenting orientations were assessed at age 32 via an interview. Findings showed that experiencing more unpredictability at ages 0-4 (i.e., frequent changes in parental employment status, cohabitation status, and residence) prospectively forecasted more negative parenting orientations among men, but not women. This effect was serially mediated by lower early maternal supportive presence measured at ages 0-4 and insecure attachment assessed at ages 19 and 26. In Study 1b, we replicated these findings on 96 parents from the MLSRA using behavioral observations of their parental supportive presence. In Study 2, we replicated the effect of early-life unpredictability on men's parenting orientations with a sample of 435 parents. This effect was mediated by adult attachment anxiety and avoidance. Across all studies, greater early-life harshness (low socioeconomic status [SES]) did not predict adult parenting outcomes. These findings suggest that greater early-life unpredictability may be conveyed to children through less supportive parenting, which results in insecure attachment representations in adulthood. Among men, this process culminates in less positive adult parenting orientations and less supportive parenting.
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Martha Harrison Stinson & Peter Gottschalk
U.S. Census Bureau Working Paper, September 2015
Abstract:
We investigate the question of whether investing in a child's development by having a parent stay at home when the child is young is correlated with the child's adult outcomes. Specifically, do children with stay-at-home mothers have higher adult earnings than children raised in households with a working mother? The major contribution of our study is that, unlike previous studies, we have access to rich longitudinal data that allows us to measure both the parental earnings when the child is very young and the adult earnings of the child. Our findings are consistent with previous studies that show insignificant differences between children raised by stay-at-home mothers during their early years and children with mothers working in the market. We find no impact of maternal employment during the first 5 years of a child's life on earnings, employment, or mobility measures of either sons or daughters. We do find, however, that maternal employment during children's high school years is correlated with a higher probability of employment as adults for daughters and a higher correlation between parent and daughter earnings ranks.
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The great recession and behavior problems in 9-year old children
William Schneider, Jane Waldfogel & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
Developmental Psychology, November 2015, Pages 1615-1629
Abstract:
This article examines associations between the Great Recession and 4 aspects of 9-year olds' behavior - aggression (externalizing), anxiety/depression (internalizing), alcohol and drug use, and vandalism - using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal birth cohort drawn from 20 U.S. cities (21%, White, 50% Black, 26% Hispanic, and 3% other race/ethnicity). The study was in the field for the 9-year follow-up right before and during the Great Recession (2007-2010; N = 3,311). Interview dates (month) were linked to the national Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI), calculated from a national probability sample drawn monthly to assess consumer confidence and uncertainty about the economy, as well as to data on local unemployment rates. Controlling for city-fixed effects and extensive controls (including prior child behavior at age 5), we find that greater uncertainty as measured by the CSI was associated with higher rates of all 4 behavior problems for boys (in both maternal and child reports). Such associations were not found for girls (all gender differences were significant). Links between the CSI and boys' behavior problems were concentrated in single-parent families and were partially explained by parenting behaviors. Local unemployment rates, in contrast, had fewer associations with children's behavior, suggesting that in the Great Recession, what was most meaningful for child behavior problems was the uncertainty about the national economy, rather than local labor markets.
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Examining the effects of birth order on personality
Julia Rohrer, Boris Egloff & Stefan Schmukle
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examined the long-standing question of whether a person's position among siblings has a lasting impact on that person's life course. Empirical research on the relation between birth order and intelligence has convincingly documented that performances on psychometric intelligence tests decline slightly from firstborns to later-borns. By contrast, the search for birth-order effects on personality has not yet resulted in conclusive findings. We used data from three large national panels from the United States (n = 5,240), Great Britain (n = 4,489), and Germany (n = 10,457) to resolve this open research question. This database allowed us to identify even very small effects of birth order on personality with sufficiently high statistical power and to investigate whether effects emerge across different samples. We furthermore used two different analytical strategies by comparing siblings with different birth-order positions (i) within the same family (within-family design) and (ii) between different families (between-family design). In our analyses, we confirmed the expected birth-order effect on intelligence. We also observed a significant decline of a 10th of a SD in self-reported intellect with increasing birth-order position, and this effect persisted after controlling for objectively measured intelligence. Most important, however, we consistently found no birth-order effects on extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, or imagination. On the basis of the high statistical power and the consistent results across samples and analytical designs, we must conclude that birth order does not have a lasting effect on broad personality traits outside of the intellectual domain.
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Patty Kuo et al.
Developmental Psychobiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Positive father involvement is associated with positive child outcomes. There is great variation in fathers' involvement and fathering behaviors, and men's testosterone (T) has been proposed as a potential biological contributor to paternal involvement. Previous studies investigating testosterone changes in response to father-infant interactions or exposure to infant cues were unclear as to whether individual variation in T is predictive of fathering behavior. We show that individual variation in fathers' T reactivity to their infants during a challenging laboratory paradigm (Strange Situation) uniquely predicted fathers' positive parenting behaviors during a subsequent father-infant interaction, in addition to other psychosocial determinants of paternal involvement, such as dispositional empathy and marital quality. The findings have implications for understanding fathering behaviors and how fathers can contribute to their children's socioemotional development.
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Michael Baker, Jonathan Gruber & Kevin Milligan
NBER Working Paper, September 2015
Abstract:
Past research has demonstrated that positive increments to the non-cognitive development of children can have long-run benefits. We test the symmetry of this contention by studying the effects of a sizeable negative shock to non-cognitive skills due to the introduction of universal child care in Quebec. We first confirm earlier findings showing reduced contemporaneous non-cognitive development following the program introduction in Quebec, with little impact on cognitive test scores. We then show these non-cognitive deficits persisted to school ages, and also that cohorts with increased child care access subsequently had worse health, lower life satisfaction, and higher crime rates later in life. The impacts on criminal activity are concentrated in boys. Our results reinforce previous evidence on the central role of non-cognitive skills for long-run success.
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Markus Gangl & Andrea Ziefle
American Journal of Sociology, September 2015, Pages 511-563
Abstract:
The authors investigate the relationship between family policy and women's attachment to the labor market, focusing specifically on policy feedback on women's subjective work commitment. They utilize a quasi-experimental design to identify normative policy effects from changes in mothers' work commitment in conjunction with two policy changes that significantly extended the length of statutory parental leave entitlements in Germany. Using unique survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and difference-in-differences, triple-differenced, and instrumental variables estimators for panel data, they obtain consistent empirical evidence that increasing generosity of leave entitlements led to a decline in mothers' work commitment in both East and West Germany. They also probe potential mediating mechanisms and find strong evidence for role exposure and norm setting effects. Finally, they demonstrate that policy-induced shifts in mothers' preferences have contributed to retarding women's labor force participation after childbirth in Germany, especially as far as mothers' return to full-time employment is concerned.
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Revisiting the Data from the New Family Structure Study: Taking Family Instability into Account
Michael Rosenfeld
Sociological Science, September 2015
Abstract:
This analysis revisits recent controversial findings about children of gay and lesbian parents, and shows that family instability explains most of the negative outcomes that had been attributed to gay and lesbian parents. Family transitions associated with parental loss of custody were more common than breakups of same-sex couples among family transitions experienced by subjects who ever lived with same-sex couples. The analyses also show that most associations between growing up with a single mother and later negative outcomes are mediated by childhood family transitions. I show that many different types of childhood family transitions (including parental breakup and the arrival of a parent's new partner) are similarly associated with later negative outcomes.
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Family Shocks and Academic Achievement
Marie Hull
University of North Carolina Working Paper, July 2015
Abstract:
Disruptions in family life can take many forms, but all have the potential to impact student learning. With school administrative data matched to birth records, I estimate the effect of unexpected changes in the home environment, or family shocks, on achievement. Identification comes from siblings observed in the same year. I find that family shocks are at least as important as teacher assignment for student learning. Furthermore, they have a relatively larger impact on students from affluent families; time use evidence indicates that this is likely because affluent parents are more involved in their children's learning.
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Parental Leave Legislation and Women's Work: A Story of Unequal Opportunities
Sari Pekkala Kerr
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
U.S. federal and state family leave legislation requires employers to provide job-protected parental leave for new mothers covered under the legislation. In most cases the leave is unpaid, and rarely longer than 12 weeks in duration. This study evaluates disparities in parental leave eligibility, access, and usage across the family income distribution in the United States. It also describes the links between leave-taking and women's labor market careers. The focus is especially on low-income families, as their leave coverage and ability to afford taking unpaid leave is particularly poor. This study shows that the introduction of both state and federal legislation increased overall leave coverage, leave provision, and leave-taking. For example, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leads to an increased probability of leave-taking by nearly 20 percentage points and increased average leave length by almost five weeks across all states. The new policies did not, however, reduce gaps between low- and high-income families' eligibility, leave-taking, or leave length. In addition, the FMLA effects on leave-taking were very similar across states with and without prior leave legislation, and the FMLA did not disproportionately increase leave-taking for women who worked in firms and jobs covered by the new legislation, as these women were already relatively well covered by other parental leave arrangements.
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The Widening Education Gap in Developmental Child Care Activities in the United States, 1965-2013
Evrİm Altintaş
Journal of Marriage and Family, forthcoming
Abstract:
Past research shows that time spent in developmental care activities has been increasing in the United States over recent decades, yet little is known about how this increase is distributed across parents with different levels of education. Have children born into different socioeconomic groups been receiving increasingly equal developmental care from their parents, or is the distribution of parental time investment becoming more unequal? To answer this question, the author analyzed the American Heritage Time Use Study (1965-2013) and showed that the gap between high- and low-educated parents' time investment in developmental child care activities has widened. An increasing absence of fathers in households with low-educated mothers has exacerbated the trend. This study documents growing inequality in parental time inputs in developmentally salient child care activities in the United States.
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Early Influences on Saving Behaviour: Analysis of British Panel Data
Sarah Brown & Karl Taylor
Journal of Banking & Finance, January 2016, Pages 1-14
Abstract:
Using data from the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society, we examine the saving behaviour of individuals over time. Initially, we explore the determinants of the saving behaviour of children aged 11-15. Our findings suggest that parental allowances/pocket money (earnings from part-time work) lower (increase) the probability that a child saves. There is also evidence that the financial expectations of the head of household have an influence on their offspring's saving behaviour, where children of optimistic parents have a lower probability of saving by approximately 2 percentage points. However, there is no evidence of an intergenerational correlation in savings behaviour: the saving behaviour of parents appears to have no bearing on the saving decisions of their offspring. We then go on to explore the implications of the saving behaviour of children for their savings decisions in later life, specifically when observed in early adulthood. We find that having saved as a child has a large positive influence both on the probability of saving on a monthly basis and on the amount saved as an adult. This finding is robust to alternative empirical strategies including IV analysis where the most conservative estimates show that having saved as a child increases the probability of saving during adulthood by 12 percentage points.
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Susan Mayer et al.
NBER Working Paper, October 2015
Abstract:
Parent engagement with their children plays an important role in children's eventual economic success and numerous studies have documented large gaps in parent engagement between low- and higher-income families. While we know remarkably little about what motivates parents to engage in their children's development, recent research suggests that ignoring or discounting the future may inhibit parental investment, while certain behavioral tools may help offset this tendency. This paper reports results from a randomized field experiment designed to increase the time that parents of children in subsidized preschool programs spend reading to their children using an electronic reading application that audio and video records parents as they read. The treatment included three behavioral tools (text reminders, goal-setting, and social rewards) as well as information about the importance of reading to children. The treatment increased usage of the reading application by one standard deviation after the six-week intervention. Our evidence suggests that the large effect size is not accounted for by the information component of the intervention and that the treatment impact was much greater for parents who are more present-oriented than for parents who are less present-oriented.
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Rebecca Lacey et al.
International Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Background: This study investigated associations between work-family life courses and biomarkers of inflammation and stress in mid-life among British men and women. Gender differences in these associations were also explored.
Methods: A novel statistical method - multi-channel sequence analysis - defined work-family life courses between the ages of 16 and 42 years, combining annual information on work, partnership and parenthood. Associations between work-family life courses and inflammation [C-reactive protein (CRP), fibrinogen and von Willebrand factor] and cortisol at age 44/45 years were tested using multivariate linear regression using multiply-imputed data on almost 6500 participants from the National Child Development Study 1958 British birth cohort.
Results: Compared with those who combined strong ties to paid work with later transitions to stable family lives ('Work, later family' group), 'Teen parents' had higher CRP [40.6% higher, 95% confidence interval (CI): 5.6, 87.0] and fibrinogen (7.8% higher, 95% CI: 2.3, 13.5) levels, and homemakers ('No paid work, early family') had raised fibrinogen levels (4.7% higher, 95% CI: 0.7, 9.0), independent of childhood health and socioeconomic position, adult socioeconomic position, health behaviours and body mass index (BMI). Those who combined later transitions to stable family ties with a career break for childrearing had higher post-waking cortisol than the 'Work, later family' group; however, no associations were seen for other work-family types, therefore suggesting a null finding with cortisol. No statistically significant gender interactions in associations between work-family types and inflammatory or cortisol outcomes were found.
Conclusions: Work-family life courses characterised by early parenthood or weak work ties were associated with a raised risk profile in relation to chronic inflammation.