Economic Deprivation and Early Childhood Development

Abstract

We consider 3 questions regarding the effects of economic deprivation on child development. First, how are developmental outcomes in childhood affected by poverty and such poverty correlates as single parenthood, ethnicity, and maternal education? Second, what are the developmental consequences of the duration and timing of family economic deprivation? And, third, what is the comparative influence of economic deprivation at the family and neighborhood level? We investigate these issues with longitudinal data from the Infant Health and Development Program. We find that family income and poverty status are powerful correlates of the cognitive development and behavior of children, even after accounting for other differences—in particular family structure and maternal schooling—between low‐ and high‐income families. While the duration of poverty matters, its timing in early childhood does not. Age‐5 IQs are found to be higher in neighborhoods with greater concentrations of affluent neighbors, while the prevalence of low‐income neighbors appears to increase the incidence of externalizing behavior problems.

Neighborhood context and adjustment in African American youths from single mother homes: The intervening role of hopelessness.

“…There was also no direct association between mothers' report of crime and youth externalizing problems. Although a link between both domains of neighborhood context (sense of community and crime) and youth externalizing problems has been found in prior work (Attar, Guerra, & Tolan, 1994;Dorsey & Forehand, 2003;Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1994;Leventhal & BrooksGunn, 2000), it is possible that crime may have a more chronic rather than an acute, direct association with youth behavior that cannot be detected in a cross-sectional study.…”

Contextual risk and parenting as predictors of effortful control and social competence in preschool children

“…Some factors that constitute the cumulative risk index, such as poverty, might affect effortful control through the quality of the home environment or learning opportunities in the home (e.g., Elardo & Bradley, 1981;Dubow & Ippolito, 1994;Duncan et al, 1994). Other factors, such as singleparent status or parental psychopathology, might impact developing effortful control through parenting (e.g., Dumka et al, 1997).…”

Cognitive reserve: Implications for diagnosis and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease

“…We consider this as the most likely scenario. It is known that education, occupation, literacy, and intellectual, social, and physical aspects of lifestyle are affected by both genetic and environmental factors [8,[92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100]. Also, although clear autosomal dominant genetic contributions have been identified for familial AD, more than 95% of AD is of the sporadic form.…”