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Title: Family Resources, Behavior, and Children's Cognitive Development
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Lubotsky, Darren
Family Resources, Behavior, and Children's Cognitive Development
Working Paper, Research Program in Development Studies, Princeton University, November 2001.
Also: http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~rpds/dlubotsky/Papers/lubotsky_cognitive.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: Research Program in Development Studies (RPDS), Princeton University
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior; Cognitive Development; Family Income; Family Resources; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Human Capital; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Parental Influences; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Television Viewing

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper examines the relationship between parental income and human capital, the household environment, and children's scores on standardized tests of reading, vocabulary, and math ability. The results show that the positive effects of family long-run average income and mothers' cognitive ability on test scores rise as children age, consistent with view that the effects of parental investment accumulate as children age. Children from higher socioeconomic status families are also more likely to display a wide range of behaviors indicative of a more nurturing and stimulating home environment, such as spending less time watching television, reading for pleasure more often, and reporting themselves to have a better relationship with their parents. These experiences and activities explain a significant portion of the variation in test scores, and accounting for them reduces the effect of income by 25 to 30 percent. Thus, this study provides evidence that the intergenerational correlation in socioeconomic status results from both a direct causal effect of parental income and human capital on child development, and an effect of other "third factors" that lead to both parents' success in the labor market and to successful children.
Bibliography Citation
Lubotsky, Darren. "Family Resources, Behavior, and Children's Cognitive Development." Working Paper, Research Program in Development Studies, Princeton University, November 2001.