We study the impact of homeowning on the cognitive and behavioral outcomes of children. Using four waves of a comprehensive national panel data set, we control for many social, demographic and economic variables previously found to influence child outcomes. The data are a panel, allowing us to control for unobserved household- and child-specific factors. We use a treatment effects model to address the issue of possible sample selection bias caused by unobserved variables that influence both the parent's choice of whether to own or rent and whether to invest in their children. We find that owning a home compared with renting leads to a 13 to 23% higher quality home environment, greater cognitive ability and fewer child behavior problems. For children living in owned homes, math achievement is up to 9% higher, reading achievement is up to 7% higher, and children's behavioral problems are 1 to 3% lower. Copyright 2002 American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.
Human, financial, and social capital from several contexts affects child and adolescent well-being. Families and schools are among the most important, and research is increasingly studying how effects of capital across such contexts affect child and adolescent academic and social outcomes. Some research suggests that families may be more powerful than schools in promoting child and adolescent wellbeing. Additional research is needed to more fully understand how capital across institutions interacts in producing child well-being, when and why multiple institutions or levels of analysis are relevant, and how several contexts can form chains of causation. Theories of social capital may promote increased conversation among researchers who study the same outcomes yet focus their analyses on different contexts.A major function of the family is to produce and socialize children. But children grow and
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