Unemployment, the Great Recession, Fragile Families and Child Development

说明(申请人提供)：本提案寻求资金，以研究总失业率--特别是“大衰退”造成的高失业率--对家庭资源和儿童发展的短期影响。这项研究的具体目的是：(1)描述总失业与家庭资源和儿童幸福之间的联系，以及家庭资源与儿童幸福之间的联系；(2)描述这些联系在不同分组中的异质性；以及(3)估计总失业对家庭资源和儿童发展的影响，以及个人层面联系对纳入以前未观察到的变量的稳健性。我们的项目建立在Elder(1974)对大萧条儿童的经典研究以及Elder和Conger(2000)对爱荷华州农场危机的研究基础上，并用更好的数据和方法测试他们的“家庭压力模型”中提出的假设。脆弱家庭研究(FFS)特别适合于这种分析。FFS是一项具有全国代表性的纵向出生队列调查，对象是美国大城市(20万人口或更多)1998至2000年间出生的儿童，其中未婚夫妇的出生人数过多，这是一个非常弱势的人群。四分之三的父母只有高中学历，近70%是黑人或西班牙裔。这些数据独一无二地丰富了家庭压力模型的衡量标准，包括家庭资源的四个领域--经济幸福、父母关系、父母健康和育儿行为--以及儿童幸福的三个领域--身体健康、情感健康和认知发展。FFS中的儿童在同一年龄段经历了非常不同的经济环境，因为他们生活在20个不同的城市，而且数据收集在不同的城市在不同的时间开始，并在每个城市内持续长达一年。为了获得经济环境的外生衡量标准，我们根据采访日期和城市居住情况，将城市层面的失业率附加到每个观测数据中。尽管一项分析估计了完整的家庭压力模型，但大多数都集中在模型的一个或两个特定组成部分：儿童健康、父母养育、父母关系、父母健康或家庭经济福祉。每一项都使用第9年调查的结果和多年的堆叠数据，并控制父母和孩子固定特征的个体水平差异。我们估计了城市层面失业影响的简化模型，以及每个家庭资源和儿童健康结果的城市或个人层面固定效应模型。为了检验家庭资源和儿童健康之间联系的稳健性，我们增加了以前研究中没有测量到的协变量，增加了对儿童结果变量的滞后测量，并估计了个人固定效应模型。通过估计总失业对家庭资源和儿童发展的影响，以及个体水平关联对纳入以前未观察到的变量的稳健性，我们比之前的估计更接近于对家庭压力模型路径的因果估计。 公共卫生相关性：该项目研究总失业和大衰退对家庭资源、儿童健康和发展的短期影响，并检验家庭压力模型的假设。这项研究使用了脆弱家庭和儿童福祉研究的数据--1998至2001年间出生的儿童的全国代表性样本(出生队列)。大约四分之三的婴儿是未婚夫妇，他们处于非常不利的地位：大约四分之三的父母只有高中文化，一半是黑人，四分之一是西语裔。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal seeks funds to study the short-term effects of aggregate unemployment-particularly high unemployment resulting from the "Great Recession"-on family resources and child development. The specific aims of the study are to: (1) Describe the associations between aggregate unemployment and family resources and child well-being, as well as the associations between family resources and child well-being; (2) Describe the heterogeneity of these associations across different subgroups; and (3) Estimate the impact of aggregate unemployment on family resources and child development and the robustness of individual level associations to the inclusion of previously unobserved variables. Our project builds on Elder's (1974) classic study of the Children of the Great Depression and on Elder and Conger's (2000) study of the Iowa farm crisis and tests hypotheses set forth in their 'family stress model' with better data and methods. The Fragile Families Study (FFS) is particularly well-suited for this analysis. The FFS is a nationally representative, longitudinal, birth cohort survey of children born between 1998 and 2000 in large US cities (population of 200,000 or more), with a large oversample of births to unmarried couples-a very disadvantaged population. Three quarters of the parents have no more than a high school education and nearly 70 percent are black or Hispanic. These data are uniquely rich in measures of the family stress model, including four areas of family resources-economic well-being, parental relationships, parental heath, and parenting behavior-and three areas of child well- being-physical health, emotional health, and cognitive development. Children in the FFS experience very different economic environments at the same age because they live in 20 different cities and because data collection began in different cities at different times and continued for up to a year within each city. To obtain an exogenous measure of the economic environment, we append city level unemployment rates to each observation in accord with the interview date and city residence. Though one analysis estimates the full family stress model, most focus on one or two particular components of the model: child health, parenting, parent relationships, parent health, or family economic well-being. Each uses outcomes from the year 9 survey and stacked data from multiple years and controls for individual level differences in parent and child fixed characteristics. We estimate reduced form models of the impact of city level unemployment with city or individual level fixed effects models for each family resource and child health outcome. To test the robustness of associations between family resources and child health, we add co-variates that have not been measured in previous studies, add lagged measures of the child outcome variables, and estimate individual fixed effects models. By estimating both the impact of aggregate unemployment on family resources and child development and the robustness of individual level associations to the inclusion of previously unobserved variables we come closer than previous estimates to causal estimates of the pathways of the family stress model. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project studies the short-term effects of aggregate unemployment and the Great Recession on family resources and child health and development and tests hypotheses of the family stress model. The study uses data from The Fragile Family and Child Wellbeing Study-a nationally representative (birth cohort) sample of children born between 1998 and 2001. About three quarters of the births are to unwed couples, who are very disadvantaged: about three quarters of these parents have no more than a high school education, half are black, and a quarter are Hispanic.