IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/jopovw/176.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mediators of Income Effects on Young Children's Development

Author

Listed:
  • W. Jean Yeung
  • Miriam R. Linver

Abstract

This paper uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and its 1997 Child Development Supplement to examine the mediating pathways of family income on children's well-being. Two sets of mediating factors are examined in line with two dominating perspectives in the literature: (1) human capital/financial resources model, and (2) psychological/family stressmodel. We examined how income affects preschool children's developmental outcomes through different pathways. Results support our hypothesis that different mediating mechanisms operate on the association between income and children's cognitive ability and behavior problems. We found much of the relation of income and children's cognitive ability was mediated by a family's ability to finance an environment that is conducive to children's learning. In contrast, family income was related to children's behavior problems primarily through maternal depressive affect. Although the financial resources and home environment were not directly associated with children's behavior problems, these factors were indirectly related to children's behavior through their association with lower maternal depressive affect.

Suggested Citation

  • W. Jean Yeung & Miriam R. Linver, 2000. "Mediators of Income Effects on Young Children's Development," JCPR Working Papers 176, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:wop:jopovw:176
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker & Nigel Tomes, 1994. "Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 257-298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Dan Maurice Levy & Greg Duncan, 2000. "Using Sibling Samples to Assess the Effect of Childhood Family Income on Completed Schooling," JCPR Working Papers 168, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    3. Robert Haveman & Barbara Wolfe & James Spaulding, 1991. "Childhood events and circumstances influencing high school completion," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 28(1), pages 133-157, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brady-Smith, Christy & Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne & Waldfogel, Jane & Fauth, Rebecca, 2001. "Work or welfare? Assessing the impacts of recent employment and policy changes on very young children," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 409-425, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kelly Balistreri, 2010. "Welfare and the Children of Immigrants: Transmission of Dependence or Investment in the Future?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 29(5), pages 715-743, October.
    2. Richard Mussa, 2013. "Rural--urban differences in parental spending on children's primary education in Malawi," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 789-811, December.
    3. Leventhal, Tama & Newman, Sandra, 2010. "Housing and child development," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1165-1174, September.
    4. Anke Schöb, 2001. "Educational Opportunities of Children in Poverty," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 70(1), pages 172-179.
    5. Schildberg-Hoerisch, Hannah, 2011. "Does parental employment affect children's educational attainment?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1456-1467.
    6. Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Marta Barazzetta, 2021. "Childhood circumstances and young adulthood outcomes: The role of mothers' financial problems," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 342-357, February.
    7. Ana Rute Cardoso & Elsa Fontainha & Chiara Monfardini, 2008. "Children and parents time use: Empirical evidence on investment in human capital in France, Italy and Germany," CHILD Working Papers wp17_08, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    8. Haile, Getinet & Nguyen, Ngoc Anh, 2007. "Determinants of Academic Attainment in the US: a Quantile regression analysis of test scores," MPRA Paper 4626, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Marta E Barazzetta & Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D’ambrosio, 2017. "Childhood Circumstances and Young Adulthood Outcomes: The Effects of Mothers' Financial Problems," PSE Working Papers halshs-01622334, HAL.
    10. I. Ku & R. D. Plotnick, "undated". "Do Children from Welfare Families Obtain Less Education?," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1217-00, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    11. Johnson Rucker C & Schoeni Robert F, 2011. "The Influence of Early-Life Events on Human Capital, Health Status, and Labor Market Outcomes Over the Life Course," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-57, September.
    12. Quinn Moore & Lucie Schmidt, 2004. "Do Maternal Investments in Human Capital Affect Childrens' Academic Achievement?," Department of Economics Working Papers 2004-13, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    13. Clark, Andrew E. & D’Ambrosio, Conchita & Barrazzetta, Marta, 2019. "Childhood circumstances and young adult outcomes: the role of mothers' financial problems," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102630, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Shirantha Heenkenda & D.P.S Chandrakumara, 2015. "A Canonical Analysis on the Relationship between Financial Risk Tolerance and Household Education Investment in Sri Lanka," International Journal of Innovation and Economic Development, Inovatus Services Ltd., vol. 1(4), pages 7-23, October.
    15. Rune V. Lesner, 2016. "The Long-Term Effect of Childhood Poverty," Economics Working Papers 2016-08, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    16. Ochsen, Carsten, 2008. "Parental labor market success and children's education attainment," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 95, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    17. Ariel Kalil, 2013. "Effects of the Great Recession on Child Development," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 650(1), pages 232-250, November.
    18. Katrine V. Løken & Magne Mogstad & Matthew Wiswall, 2012. "What Linear Estimators Miss: The Effects of Family Income on Child Outcomes," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-35, April.
    19. Heflin, Colleen M. & Acevedo, Sharon Kukla, 2011. "Non-income effects of welfare receipt on early childhood cognitive scores," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 634-643, May.
    20. Elizabeth M. Caucutt & Lance Lochner & Youngmin Park, 2017. "Correlation, Consumption, Confusion, or Constraints: Why Do Poor Children Perform so Poorly?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(1), pages 102-147, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wop:jopovw:176. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/jcuchus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.