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整个生命周期中健康和生产力的关键，并且为改善儿童早期发展（ECD）作出了越来越多的努力。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，包括家庭背景的重要性。“菲律宾儿童早期发展：纵向分析”的家长补助金试图通过以下方式填补这一知识空白：(1)菲律宾人口研究办公室（OPS）收集了2001年0-4岁儿童及其家庭、幼儿发展服务提供者和社区的纵向数据，在启动新的幼儿发展项目之前，有三轮后续数据；(2) ECD项目影响分析；(3)协作能力建设。这项FIRCA申请是为了对父母背景对幼儿发展和孕产妇保健的影响进行新的分析，以收集的数据、获得的知识和在父母资助下建立的合作研究关系为基础，但超出了父母项目的范围。项目厅工作人员根据其专业知识和研究兴趣制定了《菲律宾儿童和产妇保健专题》的具体专题，并从各种学科角度充分了解菲律宾儿童和产妇保健的现状和了解方面的差距。幼儿发展（或孕产妇健康）指标的技术/生物“生产函数”结构直接依赖于父母选择的投入和父母的外生投入，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提供必要的见解，了解在大多数文献中使用的强假设对于正确估计和解释家庭背景的因果影响是多么重要。幼儿发展和孕产妇保健。将家庭背景的直接和间接影响纳入其中的简化形式的需求关系将有助于进一步了解家庭资源和行为如何影响幼儿发展和孕产妇保健。这项FIRCA研究以项目厅为中心，由项目厅工作人员领导研究，将丰富我们对父母背景对低收入环境下幼儿发展和孕产妇保健的关键影响的认识，并使项目厅能够进一步开展分析能力建设。

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.