Income and Employment Effects on Children and Families

描述（由申请人提供）：我们建议扩大新希望项目的儿童和家庭研究，这是一项随机分配实验，旨在使用大规模调查和人种学定性方法来测试基于就业的反贫困计划对家庭功能和儿童发展的影响。新希望为低收入参与者提供工资补贴，以及全职工作的健康保险和儿童保育补贴。严格的随机分配实验设计代表了对就业、收入和福利因果效应的强有力检验。新希望增加了父母的就业、收入、使用以中心为基础的儿童保育服务，并为儿童提供了结构化的校外活动，对于一些家庭来说，日常生活也变得更加可预测。在父母开始获得新希望资格后 2 年和 5 年，与对照组相比，新希望家庭的孩子在学校表现出明显更好的学业成绩和更高水平的积极社会行为。这些强有力的实验对照差异表明，新希望提供的干预措施对儿童的发育途径具有长期影响。在本次更新中，我们建议在样本儿童年龄为 9 - 18 岁时对这些家庭和儿童（随机分配后 8 年）进行评估。主要问题包括： (a) 方案是否会对儿童期后期和青春期的儿童的成就和社会行为产生持久影响？项目效果对于不同年龄段的孩子以及女孩和男孩是否有所不同？ （乙）影响的途径是什么？ 我们考察家长的就业、家庭资源、家庭环境以及孩子的校外经历。该研究包含来自多个信息提供者的多种测量方法，以及人种学定性数据与大规模调查的整合——所有这些都提供了识别理论上有趣的路径和假设的力量/潜力。青春期中后期是价值观、抱负和态度发展的关键时期，影响一生的成就、人生规划、行为和心理健康。贫困青少年成年后受教育程度低、对工作和家庭的依恋度较低的风险很高。因此，了解该计划是否以及如何增强青少年的能力至关重要，从而为成功的成人发展树立榜样，并可能阻止标志着偏离成人独立和自给自足课程的问题行为。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to extend the Child and Family Study of the New Hope Project, a random-assignment experiment designed to test the effects of an employment-based anti-poverty program on family functioning and child development, using both large-scale surveys and ethnographic qualitative methods. New Hope provided low-income participants with wage supplements and subsidies for health insurance and child care if they worked full time. The rigorous random assignment experimental design represents a strong test of the causal effects of employment, income, and benefits. New Hope led to increased parental employment, income, use of center-based child care, and structured out-of-school activities for children, and, for some families, more predictable daily routines. Children in New Hope families showed substantially better academic performance and higher levels of positive social behavior in school than did the control group 2 and 5 years after parents began New Hope eligibility. These robust experimental-control differences suggest that the intervention provided by New Hope had long-term effects on children's developmental pathways. In this renewal, we propose to assess these families and children (8 years after random assignment) when the sample children are 9 - 18 years old. The major questions include: (a) Are there lasting program effects on children's achievement and social behavior when they reach late childhood and adolescence? Do program effects vary for children of different ages and for girls and boys? (b) What are the pathways of influence? We examine parent's employment, family resources, family environment, and children's out of- school experiences. The study contains multiple measures from multiple informants and an integration of ethnographic qualitative data with a large-scale survey--all of which provide the power/potential to identify theoretically interesting pathways and hypotheses. Mid-to late adolescence is a critical period for the development of values, aspirations, and attitudes that affect achievement, life planning, behavior and mental health throughout the life span. Adolescents in poverty are at high risk for low educational attainment and weak attachment to work and family during adulthood. Therefore, it is crucial to understand whether and how the program may have enhanced adolescent competencies that set a pattern for successful adult development and may have deterred problematic behaviors that signal departure from the course to adult independence and self-sufficiency.