Childhood circumstances and young adulthood outcomes: The role of mothers' financial problems

Abstract

We here consider the cognitive and non-cognitive consequences on young adults of growing up with a mother who reported experiencing major financial problems. We use UK data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children to show that early childhood financial problems are associated with worse adolescent cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes, controlling for both income and a set of standard variables, and in value-added models controlling for children's earlier age-5 outcomes. The estimated effect of financial problems is almost always larger in size than that of income. Around one-quarter to one-half of the effect of financial problems on the non-cognitive outcomes seems to transit through mother's mental health.

Children’s Time Use Changes During Periods of Financial Hardship

“…We show that while household composition, parental health, employment and income are all associated with spells of financial hardship, the experience of financial hardship is associated with higher screen time conditional on these socioeconomic factors. This is consistent with previous studies (Clark et al, 2021;Schenck-Fontaine & Panico, 2019) that show financial hardship provides additional information to income in child development models. Given results from past studies, and our own analysis, it is likely that financial hardship is most strongly driven by the inability to meet unforeseen or unexpectedly high expenses.…”

“…Income alone does not capture information about a household's level of wealth or debt, nor their ability to meet basic expenses. We focus on financial hardship because it is often more informative about a family's material deprivation and living conditions (Iceland & Bauman, 2007), in particular, those that may be important for children's development (Clark, D'Ambrosio, & Barazzetta, 2021;Gershoff, Aber, Raver, & Lennon, 2007;McCulloch & Joshi, 2002;Schenck-Fontaine & Panico, 2019;Zilanawala & Pilkauskas, 2012). 1 Furthermore, our data show that the average health and developmental outcomes are considerably worse for children who are experiencing financial hardship compared with more traditional measures of poverty or disadvantage (see Appendix Table A1).…”

The role of inflammation in the association between poverty and working memory in childhood

“…We should also note a seemingly odd finding that many mothers reported financial difficulties and yet had a high social status and owned their home. This can be explained by the well-established finding that self-reported financial distress reflects both economic resources and the demands that are made on them and does not necessarily imply low or lower income or lower J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f SES (Clark et al, 2019). Also, not being able to use a measure of weight for age percentiles for children instead of BMI is another limitation of the study.…”

Maternal depression and child human capital: A genetic instrumental-variable approach

“…Our child non-cognitive skill measures come from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) (as used in Flèche, 2017;Briole et al, 2020;and Clark et al, 2021). The SDQ is a 25-question behavioural-screening tool for children, including questions on whether the child is considerate of others, and her concentration span, worries and fears, degree of obedience, and social isolation (Goodman, 1997).…”