Parental Age and Investments to Young Children: A Collaborative Project

SES-9912267布莱恩·鲍威尔这是与拉拉·C·斯蒂尔曼(SES-9912299)合作的项目。来自国家科学基金会的初始资金用于确定父母年龄与向青少年分配经济、社会和文化资源之间是否存在关系。调查人员发现了总体上积极的关系的强有力证据，这种影响在分配给十几岁儿童的经济资源中最强。然而，影响父母对青春期子女投资的因素可能不会以同样的方式影响对幼儿的投资。对青少年结果影响最大的父母投资(例如，高中毕业、大学入学)不一定与影响儿童结果的投资(例如，幼儿园的适应)相同。这项研究的主要目的是检验在对青少年的研究中展示的模式是否可以推广到父母对幼儿的投资。《1993年全国家庭教育调查：就学准备与幼儿早期纵向研究》，1998-99幼儿园班级将被用来完成这项分析。这项研究将填补目前学术上的一个空白，并对社会政策有明确的影响。尽管之前的研究已经为青少年得出了一系列重要的发现，但尚不清楚同样的关系是否适用于年幼的儿童。如果资源分配阻碍或有利于幼儿，特别是在他们入学的关键和早期阶段，那么了解哪些资源受父母年龄的影响最大，可能会指导政策制定者和家长确定哪些资源需要补充。这项研究还讨论了关于最佳生育时机的问题。

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.