Income-based Gaps Research Articles

Impact of medical resources in residential area on unmet healthcare needs: Findings from a multi-level analysis of Korean nationwide data

PurposeThis study aimed to examine whether sufficient medical resources in residential areas influence individuals’ unmet healthcare needs in South Korea, where overpopulation is of concern. MethodsTwo publicly available datasets were utilized: The Korean Community Health Survey at the individual-level and the Korean medical utilization statistics at the regional-level. It included 176,378 individuals. To address the clustered nature of the regional-level data, a multi-level framework was applied, containing individual-level data, incorporating demographic details and health information. ResultsIndividuals living in small cities and rural areas with sufficient medical resources were 1.26 times more likely to experience unmet healthcare needs than those living in well-resourced metropolitan cities. Additionally, the adjusted odds ratio for unmet healthcare needs was the highest at 1.32 for those living in small cities and rural areas lacking sufficient medical resources. Stratified analyses revealed the largest disparity in unmet healthcare needs between income levels in regions with sufficient resources. In these areas, those with the lowest income were 1.77 times more likely to experience unmet healthcare than those with the highest income. Similarly, in metropolitan cities, the income-based gap in unmet healthcare needs was most pronounced, with the adjusted odds ratio for the lowest-income group being 1.66. ConclusionsOur findings demonstrate that living in small cities or rural areas with insufficient medical resources, as well as having a low income level even in an area with sufficient medical services, significantly increases individuals’ unmet healthcare needs. This suggests then need for equitable distribution medical resources across regions and public health support policies that do not limit access to medical care for people with poor socioeconomic status.

Income-Based Gaps in College-Going Activities: High School Classes of 1992 and 2004

There has been widespread concern about widening disparities in parental investments that may be associated with widening gaps in educational attainment. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 and the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, this study examines parents’ investments and engagement in the college-going process for two cohorts of high school students, focusing on adolescents from low- and high-income families. Between the high school classes of 1992 and 2004, income gaps widened in financial preparation for postsecondary education expenses and student college-admissions test-preparation. In contrast, the income gap in parents-child conversations about the college-going process narrowed, due to a larger increase among low-income parents. I examined potential explanations for growing gaps and found evidence supporting both rising income inequality and changing associations between income and college-going activities. Implications for educational attainment gaps are discussed.

Do child care characteristics during toddlerhood explain income-based gaps in reading and math skills at preschool?

Children’s early care and education (ECE) experiences have been found to explain developmental differences in school readiness between children in low- versus high-income households. However, the majority of this research has focused on preschool and center-based ECE. We have less knowledge about the specific characteristics of ECE across setting types prior to preschool that contribute to later income-based gaps in children’s cognitive skills. This study examined children’s ECE characteristics in formal and informal settings during toddlerhood (age 2) as mediators of the association between family income and children’s reading and math skills at preschool (age 4). Findings from a nationally representative sample of children who attended ECE at age 2 (N = 4,500) revealed that, among 8 characteristics of children’s ECE experiences at age 2, only one characteristic, caregivers’ report of daily reading, was a significant predictor of children’s later reading and math skills. Caregivers reporting that they read to the child daily was predictive of higher reading (0.16 SD) and math (0.12 SD) skills at age 4. Children’s ECE experiences, driven by daily reading at age 2, accounted for 7% of the gap in reading skills between children from low- and high-income families at age 4. Findings from this study highlight income-based disparities in daily reading across ECE settings among toddlers, and suggest ECE caregiver daily reading as one potentially policy-malleable mechanism in reducing income-based achievement gaps.

Class Inequality in Parental Childcare Time: Evidence from Synthetic Couples in the ATUS.

The time that parents spend teaching and playing with their young children has important consequences for later life achievement and attainment. Previous research suggests that there are significant class inequalities in how much time parents devote to this kind of developmental childcare in the United States. Yet, due in part to data limitations, prior research has not accounted for how class inequalities in family structure, assortative mating, and specialization between partners may exacerbate or ameliorate these gaps. We match parental respondents within the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to generate synthetic parental dyads, which we use to estimate, in turn, the contributions of family structure, assortative mating, and specialization to class gaps in parental time spent in developmental care of children aged 0-6. We find some evidence that accounting for class differences in family structure widens income gaps in total parental time in developmental childcare of young children. Further, we show that assortative mating of parents widens educational gaps in developmental childcare, whereas specialization between partners marginally widens these class divides. Although the net effect of these three processes on income-based gaps in childcare time is modest, accounting for these three processes more than doubles education-based gaps in total parental developmental childcare as compared to maternal time alone. Our findings from this novel empirical approach provide a more holistic view of the extent and sources of inequality in parental time investments in young children's cognitive and social development.

Gaps in the College Application Gauntlet

A large literature in higher education research has focused on disparities in rates of successful completion of the various steps along the path that leads to college enrollment (e.g. completing a college preparatory curriculum, taking the SAT or ACT, applying to a college) as an important source of inequitable college attainment between groups of students. In this study, we extend this prior work by explicitly examining race- and income-based gaps in these steps to college enrollment. Drawing on national- and state-representative samples from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, we use the V-statistic to calculate race- and income-based gaps in the completion of these steps. We have three main findings. First, we demonstrate that gaps calculated using the V-statistic method differ from gaps calculated using more traditional approaches leading to a new understanding of the size of these gaps. Second, among the steps we analyze, it appears that gaps in academic qualifications are large and similar in size to gaps in college application, admission, and enrollment. Finally, through regression analysis, we show that gaps in academic qualifications and gaps in taking a college entrance exam are the strongest predictors of gaps in the selectivity of eventual enrollment. Policymakers and practitioners interested in closing college enrollment gaps ought to identify interventions that specifically aim to address gaps identified by our analysis early in the postsecondary pathway.

Do Parental Work Hours and Nonstandard Schedules Explain Income-Based Gaps in Center-Based Early Care and Education Participation?

AbstractDespite increases in public funding for early care and education (ECE) programs in recent decades, low-income children ages 0–5 years are less likely to be enrolled in center-based ECE prog...

Take Two! SAT Retaking and College Enrollment Gaps

Only half of SAT-takers retake the exam, with even lower retake rates among low-income students and underrepresented minority (URM) students. We exploit discontinuous jumps in retake probabilities at multiples of 100, driven by left-digit bias, to estimate retaking’s causal effects. Retaking substantially improves SAT scores and increases four-year college enrollment rates, particularly for low-income and URM students. Eliminating disparities in retake rates could close up to 10 percent of the income-based gap and up to 7 percent of the race-based gap in four-year college enrollment rates of high school graduates. (JEL I21, I23, I24, J15)

Increasing Inequality in Parent Incomes and Children's Schooling.

Income inequality and the achievement test score gap between high- and low-income children increased dramatically in the United States beginning in the 1970s. This article investigates the demographic (family income, mother's education, family size, two-parent family structure, and age of mother at birth) underpinnings of the growing income-based gap in schooling using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Across 31 cohorts, we find that increases in the income gap between high- and low-income children account for approximately three-quarters of the increasing gap in completed schooling, one-half of the gap in college attendance, and one-fifth of the gap in college graduation. We find no consistent evidence of increases in the estimated associations between parental income and children's completed schooling. Increasing gaps in the two-parent family structures of high- and low-income families accounted for relatively little of the schooling gap because our estimates of the (regression-adjusted) associations between family structure and schooling were surprisingly small for much of our accounting period. On the other hand, increasing gaps in mother's age at the time of birth accounts for a substantial portion of the increasing schooling gap: mother's age is consistently predictive of children's completed schooling, and the maternal age gap for children born into low- and high-income families increased considerably over the period.

Effects of a Summer Mathematics Intervention for Low-Income Children

Prior research suggests that summer learning loss among low-income children contributes to income-based gaps in achievement and educational attainment. We present results from a randomized experiment of a summer mathematics program conducted in a large, high-poverty urban public school district. Children in the third to ninth grade ( N = 263) were randomly assigned to an offer of an online summer mathematics program, the same program plus a free laptop computer, or the control group. Being randomly assigned to the program plus laptop condition caused children to experience significantly higher reported levels of summer home mathematics engagement relative to their peers in the control group. Treatment and control children performed similarly on distal measures of academic achievement. We discuss implications for future research.

Changes in Income-Based Gaps in Parent Activities With Young Children From 1988 to 2012

Numerous studies show large differences between economically advantaged and disadvantaged parents in the quality and quantity of their engagement in young children’s development. This “parenting gap” may account for a substantial portion of the gap in children’s early cognitive skills. However, researchers know little about whether the socioeconomic gap in parenting has increased over time. The present study investigates this question, focusing on income- and education-based gaps in parents’ engagement in cognitively stimulating activities with preschool-aged children. We draw on data from four national studies conducted over 25 years. We found a decrease in income-based gaps in children’s book ownership and library attendance but increasing income-based gaps for several other parent behaviors, including reading and telling stories to children and teaching children letters, words, and numbers. Income-based gaps in children’s participation in out-of-home cultural activities also increased. Results for education-based gaps were similar. These gaps largely arose from top-income families pulling away from their middle- and low-income counterparts.

Parent Income–Based Gaps in Schooling

Both income inequality and the achievement test score gap between high- and low-income children increased dramatically in the United States beginning in the 1970s. Recent work by Chetty, Hendren, Kline, Saez, and Turner (2014) suggests that, unlike the test score gap, the gap in college enrollment is essentially constant. This article takes a longer historical view and investigates trends in income-based gaps in a number of schooling attainment measures using data from two cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97) as well as 31 birth cohorts from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Findings support Chetty and colleagues’ conclusion of little change in college enrollment for their cohorts but show significant increases in college enrollment gaps between Chetty and colleagues’ and prior cohorts in both the PSID and the NLSY. We further find strong evidence of growing gaps in college completion. In contrast, gaps in high school graduation have fallen, which provide at least one optimistic sign of catching up among low-income individuals. The net result of these trends is to produce a modestly increasing gap in completed schooling between children growing up in low- and high-income families.

Income-Based Inequality in Educational Outcomes

We report results from our long-standing research partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. We make two primary contributions. First, we illustrate the wide range of informative analyses that can be conducted using a state longitudinal data system and the advantages of examining evidence from multiple cohorts of students. Second, we document large income-based gaps in educational attainments, including high school graduation rates and college-going rates. Importantly, we show that income-related gaps in both educational credentials and academic skill have narrowed substantially over the past several years in Massachusetts.

Can Intensive Early Childhood Intervention Programs Eliminate Income-Based Cognitive and Achievement Gaps?

How much of the income-based gaps in cognitive ability and academic achievement could be closed by a two-year, center-based early childhood education intervention? Data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), which randomly assigned treatment to low birth weight children from both higher- and low-income families between ages one and three, shows much larger impacts among low- than higher-income children. Projecting IHDP impacts to the U.S. population's IQ and achievement trajectories suggests that such a program offered to low-income children would essentially eliminate the income-based gap at age three and between a third and three-quarters of the age-five and age-eight gaps.

Can Intensive Early Childhood Intervention Programs Eliminate Income-Based Cognitive and Achievement Gaps?

How much of the income-based gaps in cognitive ability and academic achievement could be closed by a two-year, center-based early childhood education intervention? Data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), which randomly assigned treatment to low birth weight children from both higher- and low-income families between ages one and three, shows much larger impacts among low- than higher-income children. Projecting IHDP impacts to the U.S. population's IQ and achievement trajectories suggests that such a program offered to low-income children would essentially eliminate the income-based gap at age three and between a third and three-quarters of the age-five and age-eight gaps.

Can Intensive Early Childhood Intervention Programs Eliminate Income-Based Cognitive and Achievement Gaps?

How much of the income-based gaps in cognitive ability and academic achievement could be closed by a two-year, center-based early childhood education intervention? Data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), which randomly assigned treatment to low-birth-weight children from both higher- and low-income families between ages one and three, shows much larger impacts among low-than higher-income children. Projecting IHDP impacts to the U.S. population's IQ and achievement trajectories suggests that such a program offered to low-income children would essentially eliminate the income-based gap at age three and between a third and three-quarters of the age five and age eight gaps.

Socioeconomic status and age trajectories of health

The cumulative advantage hypothesis suggests diverging socioeconomic status (SES) based gaps in health with age. However, previous studies yield inconsistent findings regarding the association between SES and health across the adult life span. Dealing with the issue of mortality selection bias, this study utilizes latent growth-curve modeling to comprehensively examine age trajectories of both physical and mental health by SES using panel data based on a national probability sample of 3617 US adults. We find that education- and income-based gaps in physical impairment and the education-based gap in depression diverge over time for all adult age groups, supporting the hypothesis of cumulative advantage. In contrast, we find that the income-based gap in depression converges in older age, supporting the hypothesis of age-as-leveler. Mortality selection bias is unlikely to be a major part of the explanation for the convergence. These results indicate that age-related patterns in health trajectories may differ by various dimensions of SES and health. Finally, we take into account persistence or change in income over time to examine the relationship between trajectories of income and health across adulthood, highlighting the importance of considering the temporal patterns of income in understanding age trajectories of health.