title: Income is not enough: incorporating material hardship into models of income associations with parenting and child development.
abstract: Although research has clearly established that low family income has negative impacts on children's cognitive skills and social-emotional competence, less often is a family's experience of material hardship considered. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (N=21,255), this study examined dual components of family income and material hardship along with parent mediators of stress, positive parenting, and investment as predictors of 6-year-old children's cognitive skills and social-emotional competence. Support was found for a model that identified unique parent-mediated paths from income to cognitive skills and from income and material hardship to social-emotional competence. The findings have implications for future study of family income and child development and for identification of promising targets for policy intervention.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, University of Michigan, 1080 S. University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. liztg@umich.edu
authors.forename: Elizabeth T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Gershoff
authors.forename: J Lawrence
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Aber
authors.forename: C Cybele
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Raver
authors.forename: Mary Clare
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Lennon
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004644:Emotions; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D007360:Intelligence; D007389:Internal-External Control; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D010552:Personality Assessment; D011203:Poverty / Q000523:psychology; D011610:Psychosocial Deprivation; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012919:Social Behavior; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology