Parental Age and Investments to Young Children: A Collaborative Project

这是一个与Lala C. Steelman （SES-9912299）合作的项目。来自美国国家科学基金会的初始资金用于确定父母的年龄与青少年的经济、社会和文化资源分配之间是否存在关系。研究人员发现了强有力的证据，证明两者之间存在普遍的正相关关系，分配给青少年的经济资源的影响最大。然而，影响父母对青少年子女投资的因素可能与对幼儿投资的方式不同。最能影响青少年结果的父母投资（例如，高中毕业，大学入学）可能不一定与影响儿童结果的父母投资（例如，幼儿园的调整）相同。本研究的主要目的是检验在青少年研究中显示的模式是否可以推广到幼儿的父母投资。本文将利用1993年全国家庭教育调查：入学准备和1998-99年幼儿园班级幼儿纵向研究来完成本研究，该研究将填补目前学术研究的空白，并对社会政策有明确的启示。尽管先前的研究已经对青少年产生了一系列重要的发现，但尚不清楚同样的关系是否适用于幼儿。如果资源分配阻碍或有利于幼儿，特别是在他们进入学校的关键和早期阶段，那么了解哪些资源受父母年龄的影响最大，可以指导决策者和父母确定哪些资源需要补充。这项研究还解决了关于最佳生育时间的问题。

SES-9912267Brian Powell This is a collaborative project with Lala C. Steelman (SES-9912299). Inital funding from the National Science Foundation was used to identify whether there is a relationship between parental age and the allocation of economic, social and cultural resources to teenagers. The investigators found strong evidence of a generally positive relationship, with the effects being strongest among economic resources that were allocated to teenage children. The factors influencing parental investments in adolescent offspring, however, may not operate in the same fashion for investments in young children. Parental investments that most influence adolescent outcomes (e.g., high school graduate, matriculation in college) may not necessarily be the same as those that influence child outcomes (e.g., adjustment in kindergarten). The major object of this study is to test whether the patterns demonstrated in the study of teenagers can be generalized to parental investments in young children. The National Household Education Survey of 1993: School Readiness and The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 will be used to complete this analysis The research will fill a gap in current scholarship and also have clear implications for social policy. Although previous research has generated a significant set of findings for adolescents, it is unclear whether the same relationship will hold for young children. If resource allocation hinders or benefits young children, especially at the critical and early stages when they are entering school, then knowing which resources are most affected by parental age may guide policy makers and parents in determining those resources that need to be supplemented. This study also addressed questions about the optimal timing of childbearing.