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Although the consequences of teen births for both mothers and children have been studied for decades, few studies have taken a broader look at the potential payoffs—and drawbacks—of being born to older mothers. A broader examination is important given the growing gap in maternal ages at birth for children born to mothers with low and high socioeconomic status. Drawing data from the Children of the NLSY79, our examination of this topic distinguishes between the value for children of being born to a mother who delayed her first birth and the value of the additional years between her first birth and the birth of the child whose achievements and behaviors at ages 10-13 are under study. We find that each year the mother delays a first birth is associated with a 0.02 to 0.04 standard deviation increase in school achievement and a similar-sized reduction in behavior problems. Coefficients are generally as large for additional years between the first and given birth. Results are fairly robust to the inclusion of cousin and sibling fixed effects, which attempt to address some omitted variable concerns. Our mediational analyses show that the primary pathway by which delaying first births benefits children is by enabling mothers to complete more years of schooling.

This article assesses the consequences of poverty between a child's prenatal year and 5th birthday for several adult achievement, health, and behavior outcomes, measured as late as age 37. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1,589) and controlling for economic conditions in middle childhood and adolescence, as well as demographic conditions at the time of the birth, findings indicate statistically significant and, in some cases, quantitatively large detrimental effects of early poverty on a number of attainment-related outcomes (adult earnings and work hours). Early-childhood poverty was not associated with such behavioral measures as out-of-wedlock childbearing and arrests. Most of the adult earnings effects appear to operate through early poverty's association with adult work hours.

This paper explores whether and how parents’ attitudes toward the spanking of children have changed over the last 30 years, a period when parents’ use of corporal punishment declined precipitously in the U.S. We compare these trends across parents’ socioeconomic status (SES) and region of the country to identify whether shifts in attitudes toward these practices parallel documented shifts in their use by SES and region. We draw data from the General Social Surveys (GSS) from 1986 through 2016, which asked respondents how much they agree children sometimes need “a good, hard spanking.” We compare responses among parents at the 80th (high-SES) and 20th (low-SES) percentiles of the income and education distributions, and between parents in southern versus non-southern states, controlling for child and parent age and parent gender. In non-southern regions, parents’ support for corporal punishment declined over time, especially among high-SES parents, whereas in the South parents’ support for corporal punishment remained stably high over time across the socioeconomic distribution. These findings imply a distinct cultural perspective on corporal punishment in the South, one that may help explain the disproportionate maintenance of the practice in schools and provide a potent target for policy and program interventions to reduce its use.

Objectives. We aim to understand why blacks are significantly less likely than whites to perpetuate their middle-class status across generations. To do so, we focus on the potentially different associations between parental job loss and youth's educational attainment in black and white middle-class families. Methods. We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), following those children \"born\" into the survey between 1968 and 1979 and followed through age 21. We conduct multivariate regression analyses to test the association between parental job loss during childhood and youth's educational attainment by age 21. Results. We find that parental job loss is associated with a lesser likelihood of obtaining any postsecondary education for all offspring, but that the association for blacks is almost three times as strong. A substantial share of the differential impact of job loss on black and white middle-class youth is explained by race differences in household wealth, long-run measures of family income, and, especially, parental experience of long-term unemployment. Conclusions. These findings highlight the fragile economic foundation of the black middle class and suggest that intergenerational persistence of class status in this population may be highly dependent on the avoidance of common economic shocks.

Children's exposure to book reading is thought to be an influential input into positive cognitive development. Yet there is little empirical research identifying whether it is reading time per se, or other factors associated with families who read, such as parental education or children's reading skill, that improves children's achievement. Using data on 4,239 children ages 0–13 of the female respondents of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this study applies two different methodologies to identify the causal impact of mother–child reading time on children's achievement scores by controlling for several confounding child and family characteristics. The results show that a 1 SD increase in mother–child reading time increases children's reading achievement by 0.80 SDs.

Previous work has shown that mothers' employment is associated with increases in children's body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight for height. Nonstandard work (working evenings or nights, weekends, or an irregular shift) may also be associated with children's BMI. This article examines the association between maternal work and children's BMI and considers the influence of mothers' nonstandard work schedules. Using data from school-age children (approximately 8 to 12 years) in the NICHD's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 990), this study found that an increase in the total time a mother is employed is associated with an increase in her child's BMI; additionally, the association between maternal employment and children's weight is much stronger at 6th grade relative to younger ages. There was no evidence that maternal or home characteristics or children's time use mediated these associations, nor was there any evidence that nonstandard work was associated with children's BMI. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

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.

This study seeks to understand whether poverty very early in life is associated with early-onset adult conditions related to immune-mediated chronic diseases. It also tests the role that these immune-mediated chronic diseases may play in accounting for the associations between early poverty and adult productivity. Data (n = 1,070) come from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics and include economic conditions in utero and throughout childhood and adolescence coupled with adult (age 30–41 y) self-reports of health and economic productivity. Results show that low income, particularly in very early childhood (between the prenatal and second year of life), is associated with increases in early-adult hypertension, arthritis, and limitations on activities of daily living. Moreover, these relationships and particularly arthritis partially account for the associations between early childhood poverty and adult productivity as measured by adult work hours and earnings. The results suggest that the associations between early childhood poverty and these adult disease states may be immune-mediated.

This paper examines changes from 1996–2019 in U.S. parents’ time investment at their children’s schools using data from the National Household Education Survey (N ≈ 116,000). The most common way parents spend time at their child’s school is by attending a general school meeting, which rose from 76% to 85% over this period. The proportion who volunteered at school rose slightly over time (36% to 38%), whereas the frequency of participating in school activities decreased slightly. Little change emerged in the proportion who attend a PTA/PTO meeting (~50%), whereas the proportion who spent time fundraising decreased (60% to 54%). Differences in time investment between high- versus low-income parents either narrowed significantly (attended school meetings, frequency of participation) or remained stable (attended PTO/PTA meeting, volunteered) over time, except for income-based differences in time spent fundraising for their child’s school, which grew significantly. We discuss factors possibly related to these narrowing and persistent gaps.

This article reviews how the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) has contributed to our understanding of the links between childhood economic conditions—in particular, the household incomes with very young children—and the economic attainment and health of those children when they reach adulthood. From its beginning, the PSID has provided data useful for addressing intergenerational questions. In the mid-1990s, PSID data supported a series of studies that link early childhood income to early adult attainments, particularly to completed schooling. At the same time, discoveries in neurobiology and epidemiology were beginning to provide details on the processes producing the observed correlations. These discoveries led to a more recent set of PSID-based studies that focus not only on labor market and behavioral outcomes, but also on links between income in the earliest stages of life (including the prenatal period) and adult health. Links between economic disadvantage in childhood and adult health, and the developmental neuroscience underlying those links, are promising areas for future research.