Income and Employment Effects on Children and Families

描述(申请人提供)：我们建议扩大新希望项目的儿童和家庭研究，这是一项随机分配的实验，旨在使用大规模调查和民族志定性方法来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。新希望为低收入参与者提供工资补贴，并为他们提供医疗保险和儿童护理补贴，如果他们全职工作的话。严格的随机分配实验设计对就业、收入和福利的因果效应进行了强有力的检验。新希望导致父母就业增加，收入增加，使用以中心为基础的儿童保育，并为儿童组织了有组织的校外活动，对一些家庭来说，更可预测的日常生活。在父母开始申请新希望资格2年和5年后，新希望家庭中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。这些强有力的实验-对照差异表明，新希望提供的干预对儿童的发展路径具有长期影响。在这次更新中，我们建议在样本儿童为9-18岁时评估这些家庭和儿童(随机分配后8岁)。主要问题包括：(A)当儿童达到童年后期和青春期时，计划是否会对他们的成就和社会行为产生持久的影响？不同年龄的儿童、女孩和男孩的计划效果是否有所不同？(B)影响的途径是什么？我们调查了父母的就业情况、家庭资源、家庭环境以及孩子的失学经历。这项研究包括来自多个信息者的多种衡量标准，以及人种学定性数据与大规模调查的整合--所有这些都提供了确定理论上有趣的路径和假设的力量/潜力。青春期中后期是价值观、志向和态度发展的关键时期，这些价值观、志向和态度会影响一生中的成就、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、对工作和家庭的依恋较弱的风险很高。因此，了解该项目是否以及如何增强了青少年的能力，为成人的成功发展设定了模式，并可能阻止了标志着偏离课程走向成人独立和自给自足的问题行为，这一点至关重要。

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.