Children's Human Capital Development Research Articles

The effect of family economic capital on the cognitive ability of migrant children in China

The scale of migrant populations and the prevalence of family-based migration in China have sparked concerns about migrant children. After moving to the city, compared to loacl children, migrant children are at a disadvantage in terms of access to external educational resources and internal family education. It is thus of great academic and practical importance to explore the factors affecting the cognitive abilities of migrant children. Using the CFPS database in 2014, 2016, and 2018, this study investigates the effects and mechanisms of family economic capital on the cognitive ability of migrant children. The findings show that family economic capital greatly enhances the Chinese and Math performance of migrant children and that there is heterogeneity in the effect of family economic capital on the cognitive ability of migrant children attending key schools and non-key schools. In addition, the mediating effect model shows that family economic capital mainly influences the Chinese and Math scores of migrant children through mediating variables such as family education expenditure and parental involvement. At the same time, the results of the hierarchical linear model show that the regional education level has a significantly positive moderating effect on family education expenditure, while the moderating effect on parental involvement is not significant. Therefore, assisting migrant families to increase their financial resources, family educational expenditure, and family communication can contribute to their children's human capital development.

Does the county-based poverty reduction policy matter for children's human capital development?

We evaluate the effects of China's large-scale county-based poverty reduction policy on children's human capital development. Based on a difference-in-difference model and multiple years' household and county-level datasets with national coverage, we find that this nationwide county-based poverty reduction policy significantly facilitates children's human capital development in poverty counties. The effects are more pronounced for children experienced consecutive treatment and those in more impoverished households. Our heterogeneity analyses indicate that there are not notable differences across the subsamples by gender, number of children, parental education attainment and ability. In addition, in terms of the channels through which this program increases children's cognitive outcomes, the program significantly promotes internet access in low-income families, extends children's learning time, and improves children's mental health condition, thus enhancing their human capital accumulation.

Walking for water and fuelwood: Welfare implications for women and children in Ghana

AbstractIn most sub‐Saharan African (SSA) countries, the burden of collecting fuelwood and water is gendered. Competing needs for women's time compel them to make choices, which present challenges for poverty reduction. The study investigates the impact of women's limited access to clean fuel and water on children's and women's welfare outcomes using the third wave of the Ghana socio‐economic panel survey. An instrumental variable approach is employed to address the endogeneity of women's time allocation and results suggest that limited access to safe water and clean fuel has significant implications for children's human capital development. I find similar negative effects for women's own health and labour market outcomes. Findings from the study have important policy implications regarding the provision of basic infrastructure for improved welfare outcomes.

Does subsidized public health insurance for parents improve children's human capital and close achievement gaps?

Between 2009 and 2018, many states dramatically changed income eligibility limits for parental Medicaid. We examine whether increasing parental Medicaid eligibility had spillover benefits on children's development. We study the effects of state-level changes in parental income limits for Medicaid on 3rd through 8th grade mathematics and English-language arts (ELA) achievement using county-level administrative test score data. We find that a 50-percentage point increase in parental Medicaid income limits, roughly equal to the average state increase in eligibility over this period, is associated with a 1.5% reduction in the socioeconomic achievement gap for math and a 3% reduction in the white-black math achievement gap. Math test scores improved significantly following parental Medicaid eligibility expansions among black students residing in poorer counties, with little estimated change in test scores for black students in higher income counties. We find no effect in ELA achievement gaps or white-Hispanic test score gaps. Our findings suggest that means-tested policies that improve parental and family wellbeing have important spillover benefits to children's educational achievement and can help reduce inequities in children's human capital development.

Can Reduced Child Support Make Joint Custody Bad for Children? The Role of Economic Incentives in U.S. Divorce Law on Child Outcomes

This paper examines the effect of economic incentives generated by U.S. divorce and custody law on a range of child health and human capital measures. State laws vary widely in the treatment of child support under joint custody. While some states require no child support in joint custody cases, other states require fathers with joint custody to pay the same child support as those without custody. Merging family and child data from the SIPP with state-level data on economic incentives for joint custody, we find that fathers' joint custody decisions are significantly affected by the incentives generated by reduced child support. These incentives have negative effects on children's human capital development and health, with economic incentives for joint custody leading to significantly lower educational attainment as well as worse attitudes toward school and child health. Parental characteristics and time use data suggest that economic incentives for joint custody may limit children's time spent with relatively high quality mothers, as fathers pursue joint custody in response to the policy.

Additional Returns to Investing in Girls' Education: Impact on Younger Sibling Human Capital

This article estimates the effect of the oldest sister's education on child human capital development. In many developing countries, the oldest sisters share significant childcare responsibilities in the household and can influence younger siblings' learning. I propose a model that predicts competing effects of increasing the oldest sister's schooling on younger sibling human capital. Using an identification strategy that exploits the gender segregation of schools in Pakistan, I find that the oldest sister's schooling significantly improves younger brothers' literacy, numeracy and schooling. These results indicate that evaluations of programmes targeting girls' education that ignore these spillovers on younger siblings systematically underestimate total benefits.

The Response of Parental Time Investments to the Child's Skills and Health

Recent empirical research in family economics has shown the importance of parental investments on child's human capital development, but it is still not clear whether parents respond to changes across time in their child's skills and health. Using the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, we measure parental investments by considering the time parents spend with their child doing formative activities. By adopting a child fixed-effect instrumental variable estimation to address endogeneity issues, we find that parents reinforce for differences in their child's socio-emotional skills, compensate for changes in her physical health, and are neutral to variation in her cognitive skills.

Probability of living through a period of economic instability

Welfare Based on Assets, a Way to Smooth Out Economic Instability and Develop Children's Human Capital is a four-part series of reports that focuses on the relationship between economic instability (i.e., income shocks, asset shocks, home loss, and asset poverty) and children's human capital development. Collectively, these reports build on the compelling observation that the pattern low-income families walk into is a present time oriented or consumption based pattern of behavior; in contrast, the pattern higher income families walk into is future oriented or asset based. In this first paper we find that between 2005 and 2009 the probability of a low-income child living through an income shock is between 43% (major shock) and 55% (minor shock). In contrast, the chance of a high-income child experiencing an income shock is between 6% (major shock) and 15% (minor shock) during the same period. We also find that the probability that a child will experience a net worth asset shock close to doubles for a child living in a black or low-income family between 2005 and 2009 when compared to 2000 and 2004. Policy implications are discussed.

The effects of economic instability on children's educational outcomes

Abstract Welfare Based on Assets, a Way to Smooth Out Economic Instability and Develop Children's Human Capital is a four-part series of papers that focuses on the relationship between economic instability (i.e., income shocks, asset shocks, home loss, and asset poverty) and children's human capital development. Collectively, these reports build on the compelling observation that the pattern low-income families walk into is a present time oriented or consumption based pattern of behavior; in contrast, the pattern higher income families walk into is future oriented or asset based. In the third paper we find in most cases income shocks and asset shocks do not appear to be harmful to children's educational outcomes. However, children living in liquid and net worth asset poor families have lower academic achievement scores, high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates, and college graduation rates than children living in families that are asset sufficient. Overall, findings can be interpreted as suggesting that a bifurcated welfare system, with income-based programs for poor families and asset-based programs for higher income families, may provide higher income families with an educational advantage over low-income families and might ultimately help exacerbate educational inequalities in America.

The impact of Kenya's Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children on human capital

Kenya's Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) is a national child-protection programme that provides a flat monthly transfer of Ksh 1500 to ultra-poor families with orphans and vulnerable children aged 17 years and younger. A cluster randomised social experiment was conducted in 2007–2009 to evaluate the impact of this programme. We use these data to provide an in-depth analysis of the effects of the programme on children's human capital development. Because basic schooling is free in Kenya and enrolment rates are relatively high, the scope of an unconditional programme such as the CT-OVC may be small. We use data from the evaluation baseline as well as national survey data to make ex-ante predictions about where the programme is most likely to have a big impact. We compare these predictions with actual programme impacts as a way of assessing whether the programme has had the expected impact on children's human capital development given the institutional environment. We find that the programme has had an impact on the margins we would expect, and the size of the impact on secondary school enrolment of this unconditional programme is comparable with those from conditional programmes in other parts of the world. The ex-ante analysis is crucial to understanding where to look to appropriately assess the impact of the programme.

Health Effects on Children’s Willingness to Compete

The formation of human capital is important for a society's welfare and economic success. Recent literature shows that child health can provide an important explanation for disparities in children's human capital development across different socio-economic groups. While this literature focuses on cognitive skills as determinants of human capital, it neglects non-cognitive skills. We analyze data from economic experiments with preschoolers and their mothers to investigate whether child health can explain developmental gaps in children's non-cognitive skills. Our measure for children's non-cognitive skills is their willingness to compete with others. Our findings suggest that health problems are negatively related to children's willingness to compete and that the effect of health on competitiveness differs with socio-economic background. Health has a strongly negative effect in our sub-sample with low socioeconomic background, whereas there is no effect in our sub-sample with high socio-economic background.

Child Development when Parents Enjoy Childcare

We develop a dynamic model of intrahousehold allocation to examine how parental time and resource investment trade-offs combine intertemporally to affect child human-capital development. The model allows parents' endogenous child investments, labor supply, and leisure choices to be determined simultaneously along an optimal time path. Joint production is incorporated, defined as the degree to which parental time devoted to childcare simultaneously serves as leisure. With improvements in assorted parameters describing household and neighborhood environments, child investments and development increase with the degree of jointness in parental time devoted to childcare.

Experiments in 21st century antipoverty policy

New York City is testing a policy of ‘Conditional Cash Transfers’, pioneered in Latin America and designed to address both the reduction of income poverty and investment in children's human capital development. Lawrence Aber examines the welfare policy lessons the NYC experiment might contain for other industrialised countries

Can conditional cash transfer programs serve as safety nets in keeping children at school and from working when exposed to shocks?

Income shocks on poor households are known to induce parents to take their children out of school and send them to work when other risk-coping instruments are insufficient. State dependence in school attendance further implies that these responses to short-run shocks have long-term consequences on children's human capital development. Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs, where the condition is on school attendance, have been shown to be effective in increasing educational achievements and reducing child work. We ask the question here of whether or not children who benefit from conditional transfers are protected from the impacts of shocks on school enrollment and work. We develop a model of a household's decision regarding child school and work under conditions of a school re-entry cost, conditional transfers, and exposure to shocks. We take model predictions to the data using a panel from Mexico's Progresa experience with randomized treatment. Results show that there is strong state dependence in school enrollment. We find that the conditional transfers helped protect enrollment, but did not refrain parents from increasing child work in response to shocks. These results reveal that CCT programs can provide an additional benefit to recipients in acting as safety nets for the schooling of the poor.

The Mexican Oportunidades Program: Questioning the Linking of Security to Conditional Social Investments for Mothers and Children

The article examines the ways in which the Mexican Oportunidades program, a neo-liberal social investment program, is applied in Mexico. It comments on both the efficacy of the program and the ways in which motherhood and citizenship are redefined. The Oportunidades program is a conditional cash transfer program that provides money for nutrition and educational scholarships to poor mothers on condition that the funds are used toward enhancing their children's human capital development. These conditions are intended to lead to the eventual integration of the children into the market economy as skilled individuals. The article points out how the Mexican conditional cash transfer program has shifted the responsibility for social security from the state to the non-state sector, namely to mothers and families, banks and markets. The investment in children is done through mothers' regulated participation, based on conditions, and designed along gendered, cultural norms of mothering. I argue that the conditional cash transfer system attempts to insert mothers into the market as creditworthy consumers, yet it has inserted them into the economy and into political discourse not as citizens with rights, but as mothers with increased social responsibilities. Furthermore, even if mothers abide by all the conditions and children have access to additional years of schooling, the efficacy of this social investment model is called into question due to the instability of the Mexican economy, the precariousness of work, and high levels of poverty and inequality in Mexico.

An Examination of Parent-Child Shared Time

Data from time diaries kept by parents in two-parent, two-child families in four states in 1977 and 1978 were used to examine time shared by parents and children, as well as parent solitary times, in a number of household activities. The analysis focuses on how the mother's employment time affects shared parent-child time and whether the time was sex-typed. In addition, a weak test for whether parent-child shared time stimulates children's human capital development was devised and the hypothesis confirmed. Mothers who spent more time in market work shared less traditionally defined child-care time, but only with the older child. In contrast, as a mother's time in market work increased, parent-child shared housework and shared leisure time increased. Household activities shared by the parent and the child were sex-typed. Mothers tended to share more time with daughters in meal preparation and family-care activities, and fathers tended to share more time with their sons in activities involving the home, yard, car, and pet maintenance and in shopping activities. Using time-use data, our study examines the times parents share with their children in several activities, as well as the solitary time parents spend in the same activities. Besides documenting shared parent-child time, this article addresses three specific issues: (a) Whether parent-child shared time involves human capital development on the part of children. Human capital development includes all the processes that augment a child's cognitive, physical, and behavioral skills (Becker, 1991; Bryant, 1991). (b) Whether mothers who work outside the home share less time with children than mothers who are full-time homemakers. (c) Whether there is sex-typing in parent-child shared time (i.e., whether mothers share more time with daughters and fathers share more time with sons in certain activities). LITERATURE REVIEW Maternal Employment and Parental Child Care Research on the relationship between maternal employment, parental child care, and children's outcomes generally has taken one of three approaches. First, some researchers used information about mothers' employment as a proxy for parent-child processes and then tested to see if mothers' employment affected their children's developmental and/or schooling outcomes. Some studies found both positive and negative employment effects (Parcel & Menaghan, 1994), some found selective negative employment effects (Baydar & Brooks-Gunn, 1991; Belsky & Eggebeen, 1991; Blau & Grossberg, 1990; Desai, Chase-Lansdale, & Michael, 1989), and others found no employment effects (Leibowitz, 1977; Murnane, Maynard, & Ohls, 1981). A second body of literature, reviewed in Crouter and McHale (1993), explored how maternal employment affected parent-child activities. These studies usually found that parent-child activities varied in dual-earner and single-earner households. For example, Crouter, Perry-Jenkins, Huston, and McHale (1987) concluded that fathers in dual-earner households were more involved in child care than fathers in single-earner households. While these studies have provided rich detail regarding parent-child interactions, they typically are based on small, convenience samples that have limited generalizability. Furthermore, their measures of parent-child activities are not usually based on diary methods of data collection, which are the most reliable and valid measures of time use (Andorka, 1987; Gershuny & Robinson, 1988; Robinson, 1985, 1988). Several researchers have examined the relationship between mothers' employment and parental time spent in the direct care of children using time-diary data (Bryant & Zick, 1993; Dolan & Scannell, 1987; Gershuny & Robinson, 1988; Hill & Stafford, 1985; Sanik, 1981; Walker & Woods, 1976). These studies found that employed mothers spent less time in physical and nonphysical family care. The measures of child-related time used in these investigations were restrictive; they excluded any time that is shared with children in activities other than child care. …