Family income and mothers’ parenting quality: Within-family associations from infancy to late childhood

The goal of this study was to assess how changes in income were associated with changes in mothers’ parenting quality from infancy through late childhood. There is limited existing research from which to understand whether long-term fluctuations in family income have implications for mothers’ directly observed sensitive and cognitively stimulating parenting. Furthermore, it is unclear whether any pathways linking family income and parenting quality occur primarily through changes in combined family economic resources or parents’ individual employment incomes. Using panel data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD; N = 1364), hierarchical linear models assessed links between family income (combined within families and separated by mothers, fathers/partners, and other income) and direct observations of mothers’ sensitive and cognitively stimulating parenting over eight time points from when children were 6 months old until they were in fifth grade. Changes in combined family income did not relate to changes in mothers’ parenting quality. However, increases in mothers’ incomes from employment were linked with small increases in the sensitivity of their parenting. The estimated effects of income changes did not vary between low- and high-income families. Results have implications for programs and policies that influence mothers’ employment status, earnings, and hours worked by suggesting that increases in mothers’ employment incomes have small positive benefits for the sensitivity of mothers’ interactions with their children.