Socioeconomic Factors and Early Cognitive Skills: Understanding Differential Patterns by Race, Ethnicity and Immigration Status

• In Event: Understanding the Link Between Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Developmental Outcomes Across Diverse Sociocultural Contexts

Abstract

Family income and parent education are important socioeconomic inputs which have implications for children’s early cognitive development (Duncan, Magnuson, & Votruba-Drzal, 2017; National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2019; Reardon & Portilla, 2016). However, intersectionality theory suggests that access to these inputs and the ways in which these inputs might be related to child outcomes may differ as a function of children’s social identities including their intersecting racial/ethnic identities and immigrant status (Crenshaw, 1991; Henry, Votruba-Drzal, & Miller, 2019). To identify potential differential patterns in the ways that income and parent education are linked to early childhood cognitive development, this study examined interactions between socioeconomic factors and five racial, ethnic, and immigrant status groups - White, non-immigrant children, Black, non-immigrant children, Latinx, non-immigrant children, Latinx, immigrant children, and Asian, immigrant children - expecting to find that family income and parent education might matter less for early childhood cognitive outcomes for some groups compared to others.

In the present study, we used a large, nationally representative dataset, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study– Birth Cohort (ECLS-B; N ≈ 10,650) to examine group differences in the relationship between socioeconomic inputs and early cognitive development. This multi-method study collected data from parents, children, and early childhood and kindergarten educators over five waves that spanned from when children were nine months old till they entered kindergarten. Using this data, we ran regression models in STATA 15 to assess associations between income, parent education, and child outcomes and interaction effects of race, ethnicity, and immigration status. Separate models were estimated to test cognitive outcomes at ages two, four, and five.

Several differential patterns emerged suggesting that the role of both family income and parent education in early childhood are different as a result of racial, ethnic, and immigration status subgroup membership. In particular, family income was less connected to early cognitive outcomes for Black children with non-immigrant parents from ages two through five (β=-0.093, p < .05, at age two; β=-0.110, p < .05, at age four; β=-0.215, p < .01, at age five) and for Latinx children with non-immigrant parents at ages four and five compared with White children with non-immigrant parents (β=-0.144, p < .05, at age four; β=-0.217, p < .05, at age five). Conversely, family income was more important for four year old Asian children with one or more immigrant parent compared to White children with non-immigrant parents (β=0.203, p < .05), although this pattern was not found in earlier or later waves. Finally, parent education was less connected to early cognitive outcomes for two and four year old Latinx children with one or more immigrant parent compared to White children with non-immigrant parents (β=-0.047, p < .05 at age two; β=-0.064, p < .01 at age four). The implications of these findings will be discussed with an eye towards the differential role that socioeconomic factors play in early cognitive development as a function of sociocultural contexts.

Authors

• Claudia Kruzik, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Rebekah Levine Coley, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daphne A. Henry, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Bryn Spielvogel, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura Betancur, Iowa State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author