Real Parenting
Evocative effects on the early caregiving environment of genetic factors underlying the development of intellectual and academic ability
Chloe Austerberry et al.
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examined gene–environment correlation (rGE) in intellectual and academic development in 561 U.S.-based adoptees (57% male; 56% non-Latinx White, 19% multiracial, 13% Black or African American, 11% Latinx) and their birth and adoptive parents between 2003 and 2017. Birth mother intellectual and academic performance predicted adoptive mother warmth at child age 6 (β = .14, p = .038) and 7 (β = .12, p = .040) but not 4.5 years, and adoptive father warmth at 7 (β = .18, p = .007) but not 4.5 or 6 years. These rGE effects were not mediated by children's language. Contrary to theory that rGE accounts for increasing heritability of intellectual ability, parenting did not mediate genetic effects on children's language or academic performance.
Natural Selection Across Three Generations of Americans
David Hugh-Jones & Tobias Edwards
Behavior Genetics, September 2024, Pages 405–415
Abstract:
We investigate natural selection on polygenic scores in the contemporary US, using the Health and Retirement Study. Across three generations, scores which correlate negatively (positively) with education are selected for (against). However, results only partially support the economic theory of fertility as an explanation for natural selection. The theory predicts that selection coefficients should be stronger among low-income, less educated, unmarried and younger parents, but these predictions are only half borne out: coefficients are larger only among low-income parents and unmarried parents. We also estimate effect sizes corrected for noise in the polygenic scores. Selection for some health traits is similar in magnitude to that for cognitive traits.
Algorithmic Risk Scoring and Welfare State Contact Among US Children
Martin Eiermann
Sociological Science, August 2024
Abstract:
Predictive Risk Modeling (PRM) tools are widely used by governing institutions, yet research on their effects has yielded divergent findings with low external validity. This study examines how such tools influence child welfare governance, using a quasi-experimental design and data from more than one million maltreatment investigations in 121 US counties. It demonstrates that the adoption of PRM tools reduced maltreatment confirmations among Hispanic and Black children but increased such confirmations among high-risk and low-SES children. PRM tools did not reduce the likelihood of subsequent maltreatment confirmations; and effects were heterogeneous across counties. These findings demonstrate that the use of PRM tools can reduce the incidence of state interventions among historically over-represented minorities while increasing it among poor children more generally. However, they also illustrate that the impact of such tools depends on local contexts and that technological innovations do not meaningfully address chronic state interventions in family life that often characterize the lives of vulnerable children.
Child-directed speech in a large sample of U.S. mothers with low income
Shannon Egan-Dailey et al.
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on early language input and socioeconomic status typically relies on correlations in small convenience samples. Using data from Baby's First Years, this paper assesses the causal impact of monthly, unconditional cash transfers on child-directed speech and child vocalizations among a large, racially diverse sample of low-income U.S. mothers and their 1-year-olds (N = 563; 48% girls; 2019–2020). The monthly, unconditional cash transfers did not impact mothers' child-directed speech during a 10-min at-home play session (effect sizes range from −.08 to .02), though there was wide variability within this sample. Future work will assess the impact of the continued cash transfer on children's language input and development over time.
Changing Families: Family Relationships, Parental Decisions and Child Development
Marc Chan & Kai Liu
Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We develop a tractable economic framework to study the impact of family structure on children’s cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. Combining a sequential choice model with panel data on both biological parents irrespective of subsequent relationship status and on social fathers, and a set of exclusion restrictions, we identify the unobserved heterogeneity of biological families and examine child skill formation via a control function approach. Time investments made by high-ability fathers have positive returns, whereas those made by low-ability fathers can generate negative returns. Policies that incentivize family formation should consider the quality of the fathers whom mothers are cohabited with.
IUDs Get Degrees: The Impact of Access to Contraceptives on High School Graduation Rates
Claire McMahon
University of Chicago Working Paper, August 2024
Abstract:
We evaluate how increased access to Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptives (LARCs) impacts high school graduation rates through studying the 2009 Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CFPI) which increased the availability and affordability of LARCs through existing family-planning clinics. We exploit the geographic variation in access to the program's resources by using an event study model to measure the differential change in graduation rates at high schools located near clinics after the program's implementation. Our results show that female graduation rates increased by 2.16 percentage points at schools near clinics relative to elsewhere in the state following the introduction of CFPI, and heterogeneous analysis shows that the results are driven by the Hispanic and Black female population. The findings suggest that access to reliable and affordable birth control improves the ability of a girl to invest in her education.