Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1353/foc.2020.a807761
Carrie E. DePasquale, M. Gunnar
Summary:Parental sensitivity and nurturance are important mechanisms for establishing biological, emotional, and social functioning in childhood. Sensitive, nurturing care is most critical during the first three years of life, when attachment relationships form and parental care shapes foundational neural and physiological systems, with lifelong consequences. Sensitive, nurturing care also buffers children from the negative effects of growing up in difficult circumstances such as poverty.In this article, Carrie DePasquale and Megan Gunnar examine several interventions that directly or indirectly target parental sensitivity and nurturance, and demonstrate the causal role that this type of care plays in children’s development, especially during the first three years of life. They note that even though sensitive, nurturing care is still helpful after infancy and early childhood, it doesn’t completely mitigate the effects of not receiving this type of care early in life. And because sensitive care involves knowing when to respond and when to let the child manage more independently, excessive responsiveness, overinvolvement, and intrusiveness are also forms of insensitive care.Sensitive and nurturing parent behaviors vary across cultures, and numerous other factors influence parental sensitivity as well. For example, children’s temperament and emotional reactivity may affect parents’ behavior and/or alter the effects of parenting behavior on children’s development. Physiological, cognitive, and emotional self-regulatory capabilities, as well as socioeconomic and environmental factors, can also affect a parent’s ability to provide sensitive, nurturing care. Based on the expansive research related to parental sensitivity and nurturance, the authors recommend that policy makers should aim to increase family and community access to programs that enhance sensitive, nurturing care and support parents so they can provide high-quality care to their children.
{"title":"Parental Sensitivity and Nurturance","authors":"Carrie E. DePasquale, M. Gunnar","doi":"10.1353/foc.2020.a807761","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2020.a807761","url":null,"abstract":"Summary:Parental sensitivity and nurturance are important mechanisms for establishing biological, emotional, and social functioning in childhood. Sensitive, nurturing care is most critical during the first three years of life, when attachment relationships form and parental care shapes foundational neural and physiological systems, with lifelong consequences. Sensitive, nurturing care also buffers children from the negative effects of growing up in difficult circumstances such as poverty.In this article, Carrie DePasquale and Megan Gunnar examine several interventions that directly or indirectly target parental sensitivity and nurturance, and demonstrate the causal role that this type of care plays in children’s development, especially during the first three years of life. They note that even though sensitive, nurturing care is still helpful after infancy and early childhood, it doesn’t completely mitigate the effects of not receiving this type of care early in life. And because sensitive care involves knowing when to respond and when to let the child manage more independently, excessive responsiveness, overinvolvement, and intrusiveness are also forms of insensitive care.Sensitive and nurturing parent behaviors vary across cultures, and numerous other factors influence parental sensitivity as well. For example, children’s temperament and emotional reactivity may affect parents’ behavior and/or alter the effects of parenting behavior on children’s development. Physiological, cognitive, and emotional self-regulatory capabilities, as well as socioeconomic and environmental factors, can also affect a parent’s ability to provide sensitive, nurturing care. Based on the expansive research related to parental sensitivity and nurturance, the authors recommend that policy makers should aim to increase family and community access to programs that enhance sensitive, nurturing care and support parents so they can provide high-quality care to their children.","PeriodicalId":51448,"journal":{"name":"Future of Children","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43095495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"法学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1353/foc.2020.a807760
Maya Rossin-Slater, Jenna Stearns
Summary:Compared to unpaid leave, paid family leave may better help working parents balance the competing needs of job and family early in a child’s life, among other advantages. Yet the United States remains one of only two countries in the world without a statutory national paid maternity leave policy, and one of the only high-income countries that doesn’t provide access to paid paternity leave for new fathers at the federal level.In theory, Maya Rossin-Slater and Jenna Stearns write, paid leave can benefit families in two ways: by changing the amount of income available in the household (and the amount of resources available for the child), and by increasing the amount of time parents spend with their children. Despite the lack of paid leave at the federal level, several US states have their own paid family leave programs, all of which provide partial wage replacement during leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child, and aim to cover a broad segment of the workforce through minimal eligibility requirements. Rossin-Slater and Stearns review research about the effects of these state-level programs, as well as paid leave programs in other countries.The authors find that paid family leave has a number of benefits. For one, compared to unpaid leave, paid family leave increases leave-taking rates and leave duration, especially among disadvantaged parents. Paid leave programs that range from a few months to up to a year in length also appear to improve both infants’ health and mothers’ outcomes in the job market. At the same time, the research finds that existing paid leave programs have minimal impacts on businesses, suggesting that these programs confer benefits to workers and their families at little to no cost to their employers.Finally, because rising economic inequality in the United States is in part driven by disparities in early childhood, the authors argue that paid family leave may be one way to level the playing field for children from all backgrounds and help improve intergenerational mobility.
{"title":"Time On with Baby and Time Off from Work","authors":"Maya Rossin-Slater, Jenna Stearns","doi":"10.1353/foc.2020.a807760","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2020.a807760","url":null,"abstract":"Summary:Compared to unpaid leave, paid family leave may better help working parents balance the competing needs of job and family early in a child’s life, among other advantages. Yet the United States remains one of only two countries in the world without a statutory national paid maternity leave policy, and one of the only high-income countries that doesn’t provide access to paid paternity leave for new fathers at the federal level.In theory, Maya Rossin-Slater and Jenna Stearns write, paid leave can benefit families in two ways: by changing the amount of income available in the household (and the amount of resources available for the child), and by increasing the amount of time parents spend with their children. Despite the lack of paid leave at the federal level, several US states have their own paid family leave programs, all of which provide partial wage replacement during leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child, and aim to cover a broad segment of the workforce through minimal eligibility requirements. Rossin-Slater and Stearns review research about the effects of these state-level programs, as well as paid leave programs in other countries.The authors find that paid family leave has a number of benefits. For one, compared to unpaid leave, paid family leave increases leave-taking rates and leave duration, especially among disadvantaged parents. Paid leave programs that range from a few months to up to a year in length also appear to improve both infants’ health and mothers’ outcomes in the job market. At the same time, the research finds that existing paid leave programs have minimal impacts on businesses, suggesting that these programs confer benefits to workers and their families at little to no cost to their employers.Finally, because rising economic inequality in the United States is in part driven by disparities in early childhood, the authors argue that paid family leave may be one way to level the playing field for children from all backgrounds and help improve intergenerational mobility.","PeriodicalId":51448,"journal":{"name":"Future of Children","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48500838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"法学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1353/foc.2020.a807752
Dina Kapengut, Kimberly G Noble
Summary:The early home language environment, and parents in particular, form the foundation of children’s language development. In this article, Dina Kapengut and Kimberly Noble explore the intersection of neuroscience and developmental psychology to explain how language experiences in the home, and the home learning environment more broadly, shape young children’s brains and, ultimately, their developmental and academic outcomes.Brain plasticity during childhood makes the brain particularly sensitive to environmental influence. Because socioeconomic inequality is associated with variation in environmental exposures and experiences that are particularly powerful in predicting children’s outcomes, the authors write, children from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds are at a profoundly increased risk for negative physical, socioemotional, cognitive, and academic outcomes. This harmful pattern emerges early, compounds over time, and persists into adulthood.Fortunately, a number of interventions show promise for helping parents improve the home learning environment. Kapengut and Noble highlight several evidence-based programs, most of which focus on the concept of language nutrition—a term created by pediatricians to explain to caregivers that exposure to language that’s rich in quality and quantity and delivered in the context of social interactions is crucial for children’s development and health. They also note the limitations of existing programs and of the research behind them, and they suggest where policy makers, practitioners, and researchers could look to narrow socioeconomic-related differences in home learning environments.
{"title":"Parental Language and Learning Directed to the Young Child","authors":"Dina Kapengut, Kimberly G Noble","doi":"10.1353/foc.2020.a807752","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2020.a807752","url":null,"abstract":"Summary:The early home language environment, and parents in particular, form the foundation of children’s language development. In this article, Dina Kapengut and Kimberly Noble explore the intersection of neuroscience and developmental psychology to explain how language experiences in the home, and the home learning environment more broadly, shape young children’s brains and, ultimately, their developmental and academic outcomes.Brain plasticity during childhood makes the brain particularly sensitive to environmental influence. Because socioeconomic inequality is associated with variation in environmental exposures and experiences that are particularly powerful in predicting children’s outcomes, the authors write, children from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds are at a profoundly increased risk for negative physical, socioemotional, cognitive, and academic outcomes. This harmful pattern emerges early, compounds over time, and persists into adulthood.Fortunately, a number of interventions show promise for helping parents improve the home learning environment. Kapengut and Noble highlight several evidence-based programs, most of which focus on the concept of language nutrition—a term created by pediatricians to explain to caregivers that exposure to language that’s rich in quality and quantity and delivered in the context of social interactions is crucial for children’s development and health. They also note the limitations of existing programs and of the research behind them, and they suggest where policy makers, practitioners, and researchers could look to narrow socioeconomic-related differences in home learning environments.","PeriodicalId":51448,"journal":{"name":"Future of Children","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46072863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"法学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1353/foc.2020.a807754
D. Schanzenbach, Betsy Thorn
Summary:Nutrition is vitally important both during pregnancy and during a child’s early years. Inadequate nutrition during this critical period can harm children’s health and developmental outcomes throughout childhood and into adulthood. Thus, write Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and Betsy Thorn, it’s particularly important that young children have adequate nutrition and resources.Yet many young children in the United States lack adequate nutrition. In this article, Schanzenbach and Thorn lay out the extent of the problem and review what the research tells us about inadequate nutrition’s detrimental effects on young children’s development. They report on the effectiveness of policies and programs that aim to improve nutrition among young children—especially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)—as well as supplementation of nutrients (both mandatory and voluntary) by the manufacturers of food products, primarily grains. Finally, they suggest how policy makers and others could help more young children, especially the most vulnerable, get the nutrition they need.
{"title":"Supporting Development through Child Nutrition","authors":"D. Schanzenbach, Betsy Thorn","doi":"10.1353/foc.2020.a807754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2020.a807754","url":null,"abstract":"Summary:Nutrition is vitally important both during pregnancy and during a child’s early years. Inadequate nutrition during this critical period can harm children’s health and developmental outcomes throughout childhood and into adulthood. Thus, write Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and Betsy Thorn, it’s particularly important that young children have adequate nutrition and resources.Yet many young children in the United States lack adequate nutrition. In this article, Schanzenbach and Thorn lay out the extent of the problem and review what the research tells us about inadequate nutrition’s detrimental effects on young children’s development. They report on the effectiveness of policies and programs that aim to improve nutrition among young children—especially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)—as well as supplementation of nutrients (both mandatory and voluntary) by the manufacturers of food products, primarily grains. Finally, they suggest how policy makers and others could help more young children, especially the most vulnerable, get the nutrition they need.","PeriodicalId":51448,"journal":{"name":"Future of Children","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48422430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"法学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1353/foc.2020.a807757
Christopher Wimer, S. Wolf
Summary:Is income during children’s earliest years a key determinant of long-term child and adult success in the longer run? The research to date, Christopher Wimer and Sharon Wolf write, suggests that it is.Wimer and Wolf review substantial descriptive evidence that income can enhance child development and later adult outcomes, and that it does so most strongly during children’s earliest years. Next they wrestle with the question of whether this relationship is causal. After outlining the challenges in identifying such causal relationships, they describe a number of studies that purport to overcome these challenges through quasi- or natural experiments.Among other topics, the authors examine how family income affects the outcomes of young children compared to those of older children, and how its effects vary among poor, low-income, and higher-income families. They also look at the evidence around other dimensions of income, including nonlinear relationships between income and key outcomes, instability in income versus the absolute level of income, and various forms of income, and they review the evidence for impacts of in-kind or near-cash income supports.Finally, Wimer and Wolf highlight some recently launched studies that will shed further light on the relationship between income and development in children’s earliest years, and they suggest how policy might better provide income support to low-income families and their children.
{"title":"Family Income and Young Children’s Development","authors":"Christopher Wimer, S. Wolf","doi":"10.1353/foc.2020.a807757","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2020.a807757","url":null,"abstract":"Summary:Is income during children’s earliest years a key determinant of long-term child and adult success in the longer run? The research to date, Christopher Wimer and Sharon Wolf write, suggests that it is.Wimer and Wolf review substantial descriptive evidence that income can enhance child development and later adult outcomes, and that it does so most strongly during children’s earliest years. Next they wrestle with the question of whether this relationship is causal. After outlining the challenges in identifying such causal relationships, they describe a number of studies that purport to overcome these challenges through quasi- or natural experiments.Among other topics, the authors examine how family income affects the outcomes of young children compared to those of older children, and how its effects vary among poor, low-income, and higher-income families. They also look at the evidence around other dimensions of income, including nonlinear relationships between income and key outcomes, instability in income versus the absolute level of income, and various forms of income, and they review the evidence for impacts of in-kind or near-cash income supports.Finally, Wimer and Wolf highlight some recently launched studies that will shed further light on the relationship between income and development in children’s earliest years, and they suggest how policy might better provide income support to low-income families and their children.","PeriodicalId":51448,"journal":{"name":"Future of Children","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49538792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"法学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1353/foc.2020.a807756
A. Chaudry, H. Sandstrom
Summary:In this article, Ajay Chaudry and Heather Sandstrom review research on child care and early education for children under age three. They describe the array of early care and education arrangements families use for infants and toddlers; how these patterns have changed in recent decades; and differences by family socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity.Chaudry and Sandstrom note that families face many challenges both in getting access to child care and in finding care of more than mediocre quality. These challenges include limited supply and limited affordability relative to the needs of working parents and those pursuing education. Other challenges are based on families’ and children’s circumstances; for example, parents may work nontraditional or variable hours, or children may have special developmental needs.Although experts agree that the quality of children’s care is important for their learning and development, the authors write, there is no consensus on how to best measure quality and what factors are most important. They review what we know about the quality of infant and toddler child care in the United States, why child care quality matters for children’s learning and development, and how the federal government as well as the states are trying to improve child care quality.Chaudry and Sandstrom also examine the major public programs that support early care and education, primarily for children in low-income families—child care subsidies, tax credits, and the Early Head Start program. Overall, they note, the United States’ public investment in quality child care and early education is relatively minimal, though bold proposals to bolster that investment are now on the table.
{"title":"Child Care and Early Education for Infants and Toddlers","authors":"A. Chaudry, H. Sandstrom","doi":"10.1353/foc.2020.a807756","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2020.a807756","url":null,"abstract":"Summary:In this article, Ajay Chaudry and Heather Sandstrom review research on child care and early education for children under age three. They describe the array of early care and education arrangements families use for infants and toddlers; how these patterns have changed in recent decades; and differences by family socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity.Chaudry and Sandstrom note that families face many challenges both in getting access to child care and in finding care of more than mediocre quality. These challenges include limited supply and limited affordability relative to the needs of working parents and those pursuing education. Other challenges are based on families’ and children’s circumstances; for example, parents may work nontraditional or variable hours, or children may have special developmental needs.Although experts agree that the quality of children’s care is important for their learning and development, the authors write, there is no consensus on how to best measure quality and what factors are most important. They review what we know about the quality of infant and toddler child care in the United States, why child care quality matters for children’s learning and development, and how the federal government as well as the states are trying to improve child care quality.Chaudry and Sandstrom also examine the major public programs that support early care and education, primarily for children in low-income families—child care subsidies, tax credits, and the Early Head Start program. Overall, they note, the United States’ public investment in quality child care and early education is relatively minimal, though bold proposals to bolster that investment are now on the table.","PeriodicalId":51448,"journal":{"name":"Future of Children","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45644888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"法学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1353/foc.2020.a807759
A. O'sullivan, C. Monk
Summary:Mother and child wellbeing are intimately connected during pregnancy and the first 12 months of the infant’s life. The fetus and child directly experience the mother’s life and are shaped by it. A mother’s environmental experiences, physical health, and psychological distress affect her interactions with her infant, which in turn have physiological, neurological, and psychological consequences that extend far into the future.In this article, Alexandra O’Sullivan and Catherine Monk explore the biological and behavioral pathways through which the physical and psychological toll of environmental experiences such as poverty, trauma, pollution, lack of access to good nutrition, and systemic disadvantage is transmitted from mother to child, thus impairing fetal and infant neurobiological and emotional development.Fortunately, there are ways to buffer these risks and reorient both the child and the mother-child pair toward a strong developmental trajectory. The authors examine promising avenues for policy makers to pursue. Chief among these are policies that increase access to health care, including mental health care, and those that reduce family stress during pregnancy and the postpartum period, for example, by boosting family income or allowing parents to take paid leave to care for their newborn children.
{"title":"Maternal and Environmental Influences on Perinatal and Infant Development","authors":"A. O'sullivan, C. Monk","doi":"10.1353/foc.2020.a807759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2020.a807759","url":null,"abstract":"Summary:Mother and child wellbeing are intimately connected during pregnancy and the first 12 months of the infant’s life. The fetus and child directly experience the mother’s life and are shaped by it. A mother’s environmental experiences, physical health, and psychological distress affect her interactions with her infant, which in turn have physiological, neurological, and psychological consequences that extend far into the future.In this article, Alexandra O’Sullivan and Catherine Monk explore the biological and behavioral pathways through which the physical and psychological toll of environmental experiences such as poverty, trauma, pollution, lack of access to good nutrition, and systemic disadvantage is transmitted from mother to child, thus impairing fetal and infant neurobiological and emotional development.Fortunately, there are ways to buffer these risks and reorient both the child and the mother-child pair toward a strong developmental trajectory. The authors examine promising avenues for policy makers to pursue. Chief among these are policies that increase access to health care, including mental health care, and those that reduce family stress during pregnancy and the postpartum period, for example, by boosting family income or allowing parents to take paid leave to care for their newborn children.","PeriodicalId":51448,"journal":{"name":"Future of Children","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47340432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"法学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Summary:Scholars and policy makers alike are increasingly interested in understanding how social capital shapes people’s economic lives. But the idea of social capital is an amorphous one. In this article, economists Judy Hellerstein and David Neumark define social capital as networks of relationships among people who are connected by where they live or work. Thus social capital, in contrast to human capital, resides in the connections among people rather than their individual characteristics.The authors draw on survey evidence, case studies, and administrative data to document that social capital networks play an important role in improving wellbeing, especially in terms of better labor market outcomes. Labor market networks, they write, provide informal insurance or risk sharing, and they facilitate the transfer of information (about job opportunities for individuals, and about potential employees for businesses). Moreover, networked individuals’ choices and outcomes affect others in the network, a phenomenon known as peer effects.The evidence suggests that when it comes to getting a job, networks are especially important to low-skilled workers and immigrants. Hellerstein and Neumark also report some limited evidence on how neighborhood networks may shape children’s health and educational outcomes. Throughout, they discuss how policy might strengthen (or inadvertently weaken) the beneficial effects of networks.
{"title":"Social Capital, Networks, and Economic Wellbeing","authors":"J. Hellerstein, D. Neumark","doi":"10.1353/foc.2020.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2020.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Summary:Scholars and policy makers alike are increasingly interested in understanding how social capital shapes people’s economic lives. But the idea of social capital is an amorphous one. In this article, economists Judy Hellerstein and David Neumark define social capital as networks of relationships among people who are connected by where they live or work. Thus social capital, in contrast to human capital, resides in the connections among people rather than their individual characteristics.The authors draw on survey evidence, case studies, and administrative data to document that social capital networks play an important role in improving wellbeing, especially in terms of better labor market outcomes. Labor market networks, they write, provide informal insurance or risk sharing, and they facilitate the transfer of information (about job opportunities for individuals, and about potential employees for businesses). Moreover, networked individuals’ choices and outcomes affect others in the network, a phenomenon known as peer effects.The evidence suggests that when it comes to getting a job, networks are especially important to low-skilled workers and immigrants. Hellerstein and Neumark also report some limited evidence on how neighborhood networks may shape children’s health and educational outcomes. Throughout, they discuss how policy might strengthen (or inadvertently weaken) the beneficial effects of networks.","PeriodicalId":51448,"journal":{"name":"Future of Children","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/foc.2020.0002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44106759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"法学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Summary:In this article, developmental psychologists Ariel Kalil and Rebecca Ryan examine the relation between parenting practices and socioeconomic gaps in child outcomes. They document substantial differences between richer and poorer families, including growing gaps in parental engagement and time use. These gaps matter: the fact that children born to lower-income, less-educated parents are less likely to spend quality time with their parents only compounds their relative economic disadvantage.Evidence suggests that disadvantaged parents want to do many of the same things that higher-income parents do, such as reading to their children and engaging them in educational experiences like trips to parks and museums. But they’re nonetheless less likely to do those things. The authors consider a number of explanations for this discrepancy. One important contributing factor, Kalil and Ryan write, appears to be financial strain and family stress, both of which can impede parents’ emotional and cognitive functioning in ways that make it harder for them to interact with young children in intellectually stimulating and emotionally nurturing ways.The authors conclude with a discussion of the types of policies and programs that might narrow income-based parenting gaps. They find encouraging evidence that relatively low-cost, light-touch behavioral interventions could help parents overcome the cognitive biases that may prevent them from using certain beneficial parenting practices.
{"title":"Parenting Practices and Socioeconomic Gaps in Childhood Outcomes","authors":"A. Kalil, R. Ryan","doi":"10.1353/foc.2020.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2020.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Summary:In this article, developmental psychologists Ariel Kalil and Rebecca Ryan examine the relation between parenting practices and socioeconomic gaps in child outcomes. They document substantial differences between richer and poorer families, including growing gaps in parental engagement and time use. These gaps matter: the fact that children born to lower-income, less-educated parents are less likely to spend quality time with their parents only compounds their relative economic disadvantage.Evidence suggests that disadvantaged parents want to do many of the same things that higher-income parents do, such as reading to their children and engaging them in educational experiences like trips to parks and museums. But they’re nonetheless less likely to do those things. The authors consider a number of explanations for this discrepancy. One important contributing factor, Kalil and Ryan write, appears to be financial strain and family stress, both of which can impede parents’ emotional and cognitive functioning in ways that make it harder for them to interact with young children in intellectually stimulating and emotionally nurturing ways.The authors conclude with a discussion of the types of policies and programs that might narrow income-based parenting gaps. They find encouraging evidence that relatively low-cost, light-touch behavioral interventions could help parents overcome the cognitive biases that may prevent them from using certain beneficial parenting practices.","PeriodicalId":51448,"journal":{"name":"Future of Children","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/foc.2020.0004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49263593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"法学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Health care reaches more children under age three in the United States than any other family-facing system and represents the most common entry point for developmental assessment of and services for children. In this article, Adam Schickedanz and Neal Halfon examine how well the child health care system promotes healthy child development early in life. They also review children's access to health care through insurance coverage, the health care system's evolution in response to scientific and technical advances, and the shifting epidemiology of health and developmental risk. The authors find that the health care system is significantly underperforming because it is constrained by antiquated conventions, insufficient resources, and outmoded incentive structures inherent in the traditional medical model that still dominates pediatric care. These structural barriers, organization challenges, and financial constraints limit the system's ability to adequately recognize, respond to, and, most importantly, prevent adverse developmental outcomes at the population level. To achieve population-level progress in healthy child development, Schickedanz and Halfon argue that pediatric care will need to transform itself and go beyond simply instituting incremental clinical process improvement. This will require taking advantage of opportunities to deliver coordinated services that bridge sectors and focusing not only on reducing developmental risk and responding to established developmental disability but also on optimizing healthy child development before developmental vulnerabilities arise. New imperatives for improved population health, along with the growing recognition among policy makers and practitioners of the social and developmental determinants of health, have driven recent innovations in care models, service coordination, and coverage designs. Yet the available resources and infrastructure are static or shrinking, crowded out by rising overall health care costs and other policy priorities. The authors conclude that child health systems are at a crossroads of conflicting priorities and incentives, and they explore how the health system might successfully respond to this impasse.
{"title":"Evolving Roles for Health Care in Supporting Healthy Child Development.","authors":"Adam Schickedanz, Neal Halfon","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Health care reaches more children under age three in the United States than any other family-facing system and represents the most common entry point for developmental assessment of and services for children. In this article, Adam Schickedanz and Neal Halfon examine how well the child health care system promotes healthy child development early in life. They also review children's access to health care through insurance coverage, the health care system's evolution in response to scientific and technical advances, and the shifting epidemiology of health and developmental risk. The authors find that the health care system is significantly underperforming because it is constrained by antiquated conventions, insufficient resources, and outmoded incentive structures inherent in the traditional medical model that still dominates pediatric care. These structural barriers, organization challenges, and financial constraints limit the system's ability to adequately recognize, respond to, and, most importantly, prevent adverse developmental outcomes at the population level. To achieve population-level progress in healthy child development, Schickedanz and Halfon argue that pediatric care will need to transform itself and go beyond simply instituting incremental clinical process improvement. This will require taking advantage of opportunities to deliver coordinated services that bridge sectors and focusing not only on reducing developmental risk and responding to established developmental disability but also on optimizing healthy child development before developmental vulnerabilities arise. New imperatives for improved population health, along with the growing recognition among policy makers and practitioners of the social and developmental determinants of health, have driven recent innovations in care models, service coordination, and coverage designs. Yet the available resources and infrastructure are static or shrinking, crowded out by rising overall health care costs and other policy priorities. The authors conclude that child health systems are at a crossroads of conflicting priorities and incentives, and they explore how the health system might successfully respond to this impasse.</p>","PeriodicalId":51448,"journal":{"name":"Future of Children","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8053141/pdf/nihms-1688252.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"38889813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"法学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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