Parental Impact on Filipino Early Childhood Development*

描述（由申请人提供）：生命的最初几年越来越被强调为生命周期中健康和生产力的关键，并且越来越多的努力已经被用于改善儿童早期发展（ECD）。然而，人们对发展中国家幼儿发展的决定因素知之甚少，包括家庭背景的重要性。本FIRCA申请的“菲律宾幼儿发展：纵向分析”家长补助金试图通过以下方式填补这一知识差距：（1）菲律宾人口研究办公室收集0-4岁儿童及其家庭、幼儿发展服务提供者的纵向数据，在2001年启动一项新的幼儿发展计划之前，对儿童和社区进行了调查，并收集了三轮后续数据;（2）分析幼儿发展计划的影响;（3）通过合作进行能力建设。FIRCA的这一应用是为了对父母背景对幼儿发展和产妇保健的影响进行新的分析，建立在收集的数据、获得的知识和在父母赠款下发展的合作研究关系的基础上，但超出了父母项目。具体的FIRCA专题是由OPS工作人员根据他们的专业知识和研究兴趣制定的，并以从各种学科角度对菲律宾儿童和孕产妇健康的现状和理解差距的基本熟悉为基础。幼儿发展（或产妇健康）指标的技术/生物“生产函数”的结构直接依赖于父母选择的投入和父母的外源投入，将用于组织父母背景对幼儿发展（或产妇健康）的直接影响的实证调查。探索替代规格将提供重要的见解，如何重要的是在大多数文献中使用的强有力的假设，正确估计和解释的因果关系的家庭背景的影响。幼儿发展和孕产妇健康。简化形式的需求关系，包括家庭背景的直接和间接影响，将提供进一步的洞察力，家庭资源和行为如何影响幼儿发展和孕产妇健康。这项FIRCA研究以OPS为中心，由OPS工作人员领导研究，将丰富我们关于父母背景对低收入背景下幼儿发展和产妇保健的关键影响的知识，并使OPS能够进一步进行分析能力建设。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The initial years of life are increasingly emphasized as critical for health and productivity over the life cycle and increasing efforts have been made to improve early childhood development (ECD). Yet little is known about determinants of ECD in developing countries, including the importance of family background. The parent grant on "Filipino Early Childhood Development: Longitudinal Analysis" for this FIRCA application attempts to fill part of this knowledge gap through: (1) collection by the Office of Population Studies (OPS) in the Philippines of longitudinal data on children aged 0-4 and their families, ECD services providers, and communities in 2001 prior to initiation of a new ECD program with three rounds of follow-up data; (2) analyses of impacts of the ECD program; and (3) capacity-building through collaboration. This FIRCA application is for new analyses of effects of parental background on ECD and on maternal health care, building on data collected, knowledge gained, and collaborative research relations developed under the parent grant -- but going beyond the parent project. The specific FIRCA topics have been developed by OPS staff based on their expertise and research interests and are grounded in substantial familiarity with the current state of and gaps in understanding of child and maternal health in the Philippines from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The construct of technological/biological "production functions" for indicators of ECD (or of maternal health) dependent directly on inputs chosen by the parents and on inputs exogenous to parents will be used to organize empirical investigation of direct impacts of parental background on ECD (or on maternal health). Exploration of alternative specifications will provide essential insights into how important are strong assumptions used in most of the literature for correct estimation and interpretation of causal impacts of family background on.ECD and maternal health. Reduced-form demand relations that incorporate both direct and indirect effects of family background will provide further insight on how family resources and behaviors affect ECD and maternal health. This FIRCA research, centered at OPS with OPS staff leading the studies, will enrich our knowledge of critical effects of parental background on ECD and maternal health care in a low-income context, as well as permit further analytical capacity-building at OPS.