Understanding Important Contexts for Early Child Development
A Baylor University Sabbatical Lecture by Beck A. Taylor, Ph.D.
W.H. Smith Professor of Economics, Department of Economics
Economists have long been interested in ōhuman capital development,ö the process by which people acquire personal characteristics ū such as knowledge, intelligence, experience, training, and education ū that are associated with positive life outcomes. The measurement of economic returns that derive from such characteristics has been a research focal point in labor economics.
Most research in this area examines human capital development beginning in the school-age years and extending through high school, higher education, and work experiences. Economists have only recently become interested in human capital formation in early childhood, a period of time loosely defined as birth to enrollment in kindergarten (ages 0-5 years). Developmental psychologists have long been aware of differences among children in their developmental trajectories, that is, the rates at which children acquire cognitive, language, and social skills, and that these differences are evident as early as the first three years of life. It is certainly the case that developmental outcomes in early childhood will have lasting consequences for outcomes later in life.
Once differences across children in their developmental trajectories are identified, a particularly important public policy question concerns why such differences exist, and to what extent public policy can be written to protect groups of children who are at risk. One way to answer these questions is to consider the varied environments in which children live, that is, the contexts of child development.
In this lecture, Taylor summarized his research on one particularly ruinous context of early child development, family poverty. Poverty impacts approximately 12 million children (16.3 percent) living in the United States. Among Black and Hispanic children, poverty rates approach 30 percent. Compared with their non-poor peers, children living in poverty are more likely to experience inadequate nutrition, reduced access to health care and insurance, fewer learning opportunities, residential instability, lower-quality schools, family violence, and dangerous neighborhoods. In light of povertyĘs far-reaching impact on childrenĘs experiences, it is hardly surprising that its developmental effects on young children are pervasive and span physical health, cognitive ability, school achievement, and behavior problems. Indeed, poverty is typically identified as a global risk factor for most health and developmental outcomes.
Family economic resources are linked to childrenĘs developmental outcomes through a number of transmission pathways. His lecture focused on two of these pathways: the ōinvestmentö pathway, wherein economic resources are used to improve learning supports and the home environment, and the ōfamily stressö pathway, wherein economic resources improve parent-child interactions via improved parent mental health. In particular, Taylor discussed research findings concerning the impact of family economic resources on childrenĘs cognitive, language, and social outcomes in the first three years of life. Not surprisingly, fewer economic resources are associated with worse developmental outcomes. Importantly, this association is only strengthened when considering children living in poverty. Taylor described possible mediators of the association between economic resources and child outcomes, including measures of the quality of the home environment and learning supports, and parent mental health. Additionally, important moderators of the association between economic resources and developmental outcomes, such as the quality of child care settings, were discussed. Research findings suggest that higher-quality child care can serve as a protective intervention, buffering children from the negative consequences of poverty.
This research was sponsored by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Baylor University, and the W.H. Smith family.
