Parental Impact on Filipino Early Childhood Development*

描述（由申请人提供）：人们越来越强调生命的最初几年对于生命周期中的健康和生产力至关重要，并且越来越多的努力来改善儿童早期发展（ECD）。然而，人们对发展中国家儿童早期发展的决定因素知之甚少，其中包括家庭背景的重要性。 FIRCA 申请的“菲律宾儿童早期发展：纵向分析”家长资助试图通过以下方式填补部分知识空白：(1) 菲律宾人口研究办公室 (OPS) 在 2001 年启动新的 ECD 计划之前收集 0-4 岁儿童及其家庭、ECD 服务提供者和社区的纵向数据，并提供三轮后续数据； (2) ECD 计划的影响分析； (3) 通过合作进行能力建设。该 FIRCA 应用程序基于收集的数据、获得的知识以及在家长资助下建立的合作研究关系，对家长背景对 ECD 和孕产妇保健的影响进行新的分析，但超出了家长项目的范围。具体的 FIRCA 主题是由 OPS 工作人员根据他们的专业知识和研究兴趣制定的，并且基于从不同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充分熟悉。直接依赖于父母选择的投入和父母外源投入的幼儿发展（或孕产妇健康）指标的技术/生物“生产函数”的构建将用于组织父母背景对幼儿发展（或孕产妇健康）的直接影响的实证调查。对替代规范的探索将为大多数文献中使用的强有力的假设对于正确估计和解释家庭背景对儿童早期发展和孕产妇健康的因果影响的重要性提供重要见解。包含家庭背景的直接和间接影响的简化形式的需求关系将进一步了解家庭资源和行为如何影响儿童早期发展和孕产妇健康。这项 FIRCA 研究以 OPS 为中心，由 OPS 工作人员领导研究，将丰富我们对低收入背景下父母背景对 ECD 和孕产妇保健的关键影响的了解，并允许 OPS 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.