Poster #131 - The indirect association between early unconditional cash transfers and children’s behavioral health through parental investment

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Abstract

Introduction: Early income poverty largely shapes children’s behavioral health. Although cash transfers programs have been widely implemented to mitigate childhood poverty, the vast findings do not provide clear insights into their direct effects. Informed by the family investment model, this study addresses this gap by examining parental material and time investments over time as two related but distinct mediating pathways.

Research Questions (RQs): (1) How do the relationships between unconditional cash transfers and parental investments unfold over time? (2) How are unconditional cash transfers indirectly associated with reduced early internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems through material and time investments over time? The RQs respond to the major challenges of null and fade-out effects pervasive across many U.S. cash transfer programs.

Data: This study used secondary data from an unconditional cash transfers program called Baby’s First Years designed as two-armed randomized controlled trials. The sample is 1000 low-income mothers recruited in four U.S. metropolitan areas shortly after giving birth. They were randomly assigned into treatment (n = 400; 40%) and controlled (n = 600; 60%) groups, who respectively received $333 or $20 monthly cash gift payments for 76 months after childbirth.

Methods: Cross-lagged panel modeling (CLPM) was used as the main analytical approach. The modeling has strengths to address more nuanced dynamics by examining the time-invariant cash treatment (predictor) and its longitudinal associations with time-variant mediators–parental material and time investment (mediators)–across the first three years after childbirth in predicting children’s internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems (outcomes) at age 4.

Results: Regarding the RQ1, early cash transfers explained the stable differences across high- vs. low-cash gifts families, suggesting that families receiving high-cash gifts in general had more material and time investment (β = 0.14, β = 0.12, p < 0.01). The cross-lagged within-person dynamics suggest that families who invested more materials (α2 = 0.17, p < 0.05; α3 = 0.33, p < 0.001) and time (δ2 = 0.16, p < 0.05; δ3 = 0.19, p < 0.01) were likely to invest more at the next occasion. However, only age-1 material investment was associated with age-2 time investments (β2 = 0.09, p < 0.05). 

Regarding the RQ2, cash transfers were statistically non-significant associated with behavioral problems as expected (β = 0.05), suggesting no remaining direct effect and any benefits of cash transfers appeared to operate indirectly. The mediation analysis suggests cash transfers had a beneficial indirect effect on reduced problem behaviors only through parental time investment at age 1 (b = −0.29, SE = 0.14, p = 0.044; β = −0.01). 

Implications: The first findings provide nuanced evidence of how parental material and time investments, driven by cash transfers and prior levels of investments, follow different dynamic patterns in early years. To alleviate economic inequality in children’s behavioral health, the second finding suggests a type and timing specific mediating mechanism. It informs the need for cash assistance programs and early care and education policies to promote early child-focused expenditures and early-learning activities.

Author

• Chenxiao Wang, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Presenting Author