Income and Employment Effects on Children and Families

收入和就业对儿童和家庭的影响

• 批准号: 6557921
• 负责人: ALETHA C HUSTON
• 金额: $ 88.22万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-02-01 至 2007-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6557921
• 关键词: adolescence (12-20); behavioral /social science research tag; child behavior; child care; child psychology; clinical research; education; employment /unemployment; family structure /dynamics; gender difference; health care; health insurance; human subject; income; interview; longitudinal human study; middle childhood (6-11); motivation; preschool child (1-5); psychological stressor; public assistance; quality of life; self concept; social behavior; urban poverty area

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.

描述（由申请人提供）：我们建议扩展新希望项目的儿童和家庭研究，这是一个随机分配实验，旨在测试以就业为基础的反贫困计划对家庭功能和儿童发展的影响，采用大规模调查和民族志定性方法。新希望为低收入参与者提供工资补助，并为全职工作的人提供医疗保险和儿童保育补贴。严格的随机分配实验设计对就业、收入和福利的因果关系进行了强有力的检验。新希望项目增加了父母的就业和收入，增加了儿童看护中心的使用，为儿童安排了校外活动，对一些家庭来说，还增加了可预测的日常生活。新希望家庭的孩子在学校表现出比对照组更好的学习成绩和更高水平的积极社会行为，在父母开始新希望资格后2年和5年。这些强有力的实验-控制差异表明，新希望提供的干预对儿童的发展途径有长期影响。在这次更新中，我们建议在样本儿童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)当儿童进入童年晚期和青春期时，项目对他们的成就和社会行为是否有持久的影响？对不同年龄的孩子和男孩女孩来说，项目的效果是否不同？(b)影响的途径是什么？我们考察了父母的就业、家庭资源、家庭环境和孩子的校外经历。该研究包含来自多个信息者的多种测量方法，并将人种学定性数据与大规模调查相结合——所有这些都为确定理论上有趣的途径和假设提供了力量/潜力。青春期中后期是价值观、愿望和态度发展的关键时期，这些价值观、愿望和态度会影响一生的成就、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，对工作和家庭的依赖程度低的风险很高。因此，了解该项目是否以及如何提高青少年的能力，从而为成功的成人发展树立模式，并可能阻止偏离成人独立和自给自足道路的问题行为，这一点至关重要。