Boosting Family Income to Promote Child Development
Boosting Family Income to Promote Child Development
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DOI：
10.1353/foc.2014.0008
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发表时间：
2014-03-01
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Votruba-Drzal, Elizabeth
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Duncan, Greg J.;Magnuson, Katherine;Votruba-Drzal, Elizabeth
格雷格·邓肯（Greg Duncan）、凯瑟琳·马格努森（Katherine Magnuson）和伊丽莎白·沃特鲁巴-德尔扎尔（Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal）写道，生活在贫困中的家庭面临着许多不利因素，这些不利因素可能会在很多方面阻碍孩子的发展。当贫困家庭在经济上艰难度日、应对不合格的住房、不安全的社区和不足的学校时，他们在日常生活中比富裕家庭承受更多的压力，从而产生一系列心理和发展后果。贫困家庭还缺乏资源来投资于高质量的儿童保育和丰富的学习经历等，这些都可以让富裕的孩子获得优势。通常，贫困父母也缺乏富裕父母投资于孩子的时间，因为贫困父母更有可能独自抚养孩子，或者工作时间不固定，工作时间不灵活。增加贫困父母的收入，独立于任何其他形式的援助，可以帮助他们的孩子在学校和生活中取得成功吗？理论上的理由很充分，邓肯、马格努森和沃特鲁巴-德尔扎尔找到了确凿的证据，证明答案是肯定的，例如，来自贫困家庭的孩子看到收入增加，在学校表现更好，完成了更长的学业。但如果增加贫困父母的收入可以帮助他们的孩子，那么一个关键问题仍然存在：额外收入在孩子一生中何时出现重要吗？发育神经生物学强烈表明，收入的增加应该在儿童的早期阶段产生最大的影响，此时他们的大脑和其他系统正在迅速发育，尽管我们需要更多的证据来证明这一点。作者提供了一些例子，说明政策制定者如何结合他们提出的研究结果，为贫困家庭制定更有效的计划。他们最后警告说：如果收入的增加可以帮助贫困儿童，那么通过削减食品券等社会安全网计划而导致的收入下降肯定会伤害他们。
Families who live in poverty face disadvantages that can hinder their children's development in many ways, write Greg Duncan, Katherine Magnuson, and Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal. As they struggle to get by economically, and as they cope with substandard housing, unsafe neighborhoods, and inadequate schools, poor families experience more stress in their daily lives than more affluent families do, with a host of psychological and developmental consequences. Poor families also lack the resources to invest in things like high-quality child care and enriched learning experiences that give more affluent children a leg up. Often, poor parents also lack the time that wealthier parents have to invest in their children, because poor parents are more likely to be raising children alone or to work nonstandard hours and have inflexible work schedules.Can increasing poor parents' incomes, independent of any other sort of assistance, help their children succeed in school and in life? The theoretical case is strong, and Duncan, Magnuson, and Votruba-Drzal find solid evidence that the answer is yes children from poor families that see a boost in income do better in school and complete more years of schooling, for example. But if boosting poor parents' incomes can help their children, a crucial question remains: Does it matter when in a child's life the additional income appears? Developmental neurobiology strongly suggests that increased income should have the greatest effect during children's early years, when their brains and other systems are developing rapidly, though we need more evidence to prove this conclusively.The authors offer examples of how policy makers could incorporate the findings they present to create more effective programs for families living in poverty. And they conclude with a warning: if a boost in income can help poor children, then a drop in income for example, through cuts to social safety net programs like food stamps can surely harm them.