Economic resources parental practices and child well-being.

Abstract

This chapter uses data from the 1987 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to examine the relationship between economic deprivation and child well-being. We pay special attention to the relationship between family income and parental socialization and ask whether differences in parenting practices can account for the lower achievement and poorer adjustment of children in economically disadvantaged households. We found that income increases childrens welfare. We also found that household debt is negatively related to a number of child well-being indicators for children in one-parent and two-parent households. Our results suggest that differences in levels of parental practices do not account for the effects of income or household debt on childrens achievement and adjustment. Our results also suggest that parental practices have different consequences for children in poor anal nonpoor households. In two-parent households parenting practices tend to have more beneficial effects on poor children than on nonpoor children -- suggesting that good parenting may buffer children in two-parent households from some of the deleterious consequences of economic deprivation. In one-parent households parenting practices tend to benefit children who are not poor more than those who are. These later results suggest that residence in a nonintact family and economic deprivation combine to reduce childrens capacity to respond positively to good parental practices. (excerpt)