Early Childhood Environment and Adult Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from U.S. Administrative Data

该项目研究幼儿经济环境对成人经济福祉的长期因果影响。它研究了出生在美国经济困难地区的儿童是否在成年后相对于其他人有持续更差的结果，以及儿童获得安全网是否会改善或加剧其中一些不利因素。在这样做的过程中，这个项目希望阐明公共计划（包括妇女、婴儿和儿童特别补充营养计划（WIC）、先声夺人计划和食品券）在保护个人免受儿童早期经济劣势的长期后果方面发挥社会安全网作用的程度。为了回答这些问题，该项目使用了新近获得的关于美国大部分劳动力的管理数据，这些数据将个人的出生日期和地点的信息与他们在30多岁和40多岁时观察到的年收入和就业情况的信息结合在一起。这些结果可能对最近受大衰退影响的儿童群体产生重要影响，并有助于理解不平等的持续存在，此外，该项目可能有助于提高对美国一些最大的社会安全网计划的好处和相对功效的理解，这些计划针对的是大量弱势群体。该项目的成果将通过将决策者、公众和学术界联系起来的论坛传播。从这项研究中产生的数据和程序将提供给其他研究人员，从而能够进一步研究美国早期生活劣势的长期后果。

This project studies the long-term causal effects of early childhood economic circumstances on adult economic well-being. It examines whether children born into economically distressed areas of the U.S. have persistently worse outcomes in adulthood relative to others, and whether access to the safety net as a child ameliorates or exacerbates some of these disadvantages. In doing so, this project hopes to shed light on the degree to which public programs (including the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Head Start, and Food Stamps) play the role of a social safety net in terms of protecting individuals against the long-term consequences of economic disadvantages in early childhood. To answer these questions, this project uses newly available administrative data on a large fraction of the United States workforce that combines information on individuals' dates and places of birth together with information on their annual earnings and employment observed well into their 30s and 40s.This research attempts to uncover some of the long-run consequences of growing up in an economically distressed location in the U.S. These results may have important implications for the recent cohorts of children affected by the Great Recession and contribute to the understanding of the persistence in inequality as well as intergenerational transmission of economic well-being in the U.S. Moreover, this project may help improve the understanding of the benefits and relative efficacy of some of the largest social safety net programs in the United States, which target a large and vulnerable population. The results from this project will be disseminated through forums linking policymakers, the public, and the academic community. The data and programs generated from this research will be available to other researchers, enabling further research on the long-run consequences of early-life disadvantages in the U.S.