Parental Age and Allocation of Resources to Young Children: A Collaborative Project

University Of South Carolina At Columbia, Columbia SC

Investigators

Abstract

SES-9912299 LaLa Carr Steelman This is a collaborative project with Brian Powell (SES-9912267). Inital funding from the National Science Foundation was used to identify whether there is a relationship between parental age and the allocation of economic, social and cultural resources to teenagers. The investigators found strong evidence of a generally positive relationship, with the effects being strongest among economic resources that were allocated to teenage children. The factors influencing parental investments in adolescent offspring, however, may not operate in the same fashion for investments in young children. Parental investments that most influence adolescent outcomes (e.g., high school graduate, matriculation in college) may not necessarily be the same as those that influence child outcomes (e.g., adjustment in kindergarten). The major object of this study is to test whether the patterns demonstrated in the study of teenagers can be generalized to parental investments in young children. The National Household Education Survey of 1993: School Readiness and The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 will be used to complete this analysis The research will fill a gap in current scholarship and also have clear implications for social policy. Although previous research has generated a significant set of findings for adolescents, it is unclear whether the same relationship will hold for young children. If resource allocation hinders or benefits young children, especially at the critical and early stages when they are entering school, then knowing which resources are most affected by parental age may guide policy makers and parents in determining those resources that need to be supplemented. This study also addressed questions about the optimal timing of childbearing.