![]() There were several additional inclusion criteria:įinancial resources had to be measured during childhood, but outcomes could be measured with a lag – for example the effect of childhood income on high school graduation. In addition, we also searched for evidence on intermediate outcomes: parenting and the home learning environment maternal mental health parental health behaviours and expenditure patterns. Searches for evidence on children’s outcomes were conducted under three broad headings: cognitive development and school achievement social, behavioural and emotional development and physical health. We reflect further below on the particular weaknesses of each approach, and throughout the review we consider how the evidence falls across the different method types as well as overall.Īll included studies used a measure of household income as their key explanatory variable. 2002), down through quasi-experimental approaches to the least superior fixed effect studies. There is a clear hierarchy of methods in establishing causation from the ‘gold standard’ of RCTs at the top (Sefton et al. We do not wish to imply that all included studies should be treated equally, however. We interpreted ‘reliable causal methods’ to include randomised controlled trials (RCTs), quasi-experiments, and fixed effect or other similar techniques using longitudinal data to measure within-household changes in resources and outcomes. The aim was to identify all relevant studies using reliable causal methods to investigate the impact of household financial resources on children’s outcomes, or on intermediate outcomes. Resource constraints ruled out the comprehensive approach taken in the first stage, but the sampling approach should protect against bias in terms of the evidence found. ![]() At the second stage abstracts of the top 2000 search results were reviewed, where results are ordered by relevance. This review was subsequently updated with evidence published from 2012 to early 2017. First, a fully comprehensive systematic review was conducted, examining every abstract from systematic searches of studies published between 19. There were two stages to the review process. The two models are not mutually exclusive, and might interact with each other: for example, more money might give parents the mental space to plan healthier meals and stimulating activities, as well as the resources to afford them. Economic stress can make parents frustrated, less patient and lacking in the emotional resources needed for supportive and nurturing parenting behaviours (McLoyd 1990 Magnuson and Duncan 2002). The ‘family stress model’ refers to the impact of economic disadvantage on the emotional home environment, holding that hardship causes stress for parents, and this in turn affects their parenting abilities (Conger et al. ![]() ‘Investment theory’ captures the way financial resources enable parents to buy goods that children need in order to thrive: good quality housing and a healthy diet books and other learning materials outings and holidays (Duncan et al. The literature has highlighted two relevant theories (Duncan et al. On the one hand, there are good reasons to think that income itself has an influence on child development. However, the extent to which these associations reflect causal relations is still not well understood. This finding has implications for our ability to generalise from observational studies. ![]() The review also makes a methodological contribution, identifying that effects tend to be larger in experimental and quasi-experimental studies than in fixed effect approaches. There is also clear evidence of a positive causal effect of income on ‘intermediate outcomes’ that are important for children’s development, including maternal mental health, parenting and the home environment. The results lend strong support to the hypothesis that household income has a positive causal effect on children’s outcomes, including their cognitive and social-behavioural development and their health, particularly in households with low income to begin with. To be included, studies had to use Randomised Controlled Trials, quasi-experiments or fixed effect-style techniques on longitudinal data. The authors conducted a systematic review of studies using methods that lend themselves to causal interpretation. However, there is continuing uncertainty about how far money itself matters, and how far associations simply reflect other, unobserved, differences between richer and poorer families. There is abundant evidence that children in low income households do less well than their peers on a range of developmental outcomes.
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