1-145 - Income Inequality and Instability, Child Maltreatment, and Child Wellbeing Over Time and Across Cultures

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Building on scholarship from psychology, public policy, and demography, this symposium brings together new research on how inequality, instability, and economic hardship influence child wellbeing, harsh parenting, and maltreatment risk. The first paper uses the General Social Survey (1986-2014) to examine income-based differences in parents’ attitudes towards corporal punishment, and finds that approval for corporal punishment declined only among those at the top of the income distribution, leading to increasing income-related disparities in support for corporal punishment. The second paper uses the Parenting Across Cultures Project to examine the association between subjective perceptions of economic wellbeing and corporal punishment in 9 countries during the Great Recession. Results indicate that increased subjective financial stress was associated with increased mild corporal punishment. The third paper uses the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) to investigate the role of maternal work instability in children’s cognitive and socioemotional development. Findings suggest that an increase in the number of months of maternal employment in early childhood is associated with increased cognitive development and lower levels of externalizing behavior. The fourth study also uses the FFCWS and investigates the influence of distal and proximal relationship transitions on the risk for child maltreatment. Results indicate that proximal transitions of all kinds are associated with increased child abuse risk, while both proximal and distal transitions to marriage and cohabitation are associated with a decrease in child abuse risk. Collectively, these studies illuminate a pathway from economic hardship through parenting to child wellbeing across both time and culture.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Christina Padilla, Georgetown University

Individual Presentations

• Income-based Gaps in Parents’ Attitudes toward Corporal Punishment, 1986-2014 - Rebecca Ryan, Georgetown University; Ariel Kalil, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago; Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest, New York University; Presenting Author: Caitlin Hines, Georgetown University; Christina Padilla, Georgetown University

• Does parents' psychological experience of economic conditions matter for child maltreatment risk? An exploration in nine countries - Presenting Author: Anika Schenck-Fontaine, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University

• Maternal Employment Stability in Early Childhood: Links with Child Behavior and Cognitive Skills - Presenting Author: Natasha Pilkauskas, University of Michigan; Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Teachers College, Columbia University; Jane Waldfogel, Columbia University

• Relationship Transitions and the Risk for Child Maltreatment: Proximal and Distal Forces - Presenting Author: William Schneider, Northwestern University