ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

The rise of welfare reform led many parents to rely on their family, friends, and neighbors for their child care. A study released in August, 2005 by Professors Raquel Bernal of Northwestern University and Michael Keane of Yale University show that this informal care may negatively influence a child’s mental development. Center-based or formal care, however, may offset negative effects of a mother’s reduced contact time with her child. According to the study’s authors, "I would say that the crucial thing to take from the paper is that separation from the mother can be detrimental for children, but mothers can partially offset this by choosing the appropriate type of daycare." Due to welfare reform in 1996, many mothers were forced to reduce their contact time with their children in order to fulfill work requirements.

The authors collected data from 1,519 single mothers who had children between 1990 and 2000 and, thus, were subject to the new work requirements. They found that, overall, the mother’s choice of child care during the first year of life did not seem to affect the child’s later cognitive development. However, children placed in an informal care situation after the first year of life scored 3.5% lower on achievement tests than children who were placed in some type of formal care or remained at home with their mothers. Additionally, they found that after the first year, each full year of informal care was associated with a 2.9% reduction in the child’s achievement test scores. Children who were placed in formal child care settings for equivalent periods of time did not show any significant reduction in scores.

The authors speculated that the discrepancy in achievement scores could be due to less training, greater organization and discipline skills, more activities and more stimulation for the child, as well as increased opportunities for social interaction.

Bernal commented that, “We do not advocate for women to stay at home, but rather for policies to be designed in such a way that we can provide women with the types of daycare that can benefit children, with subsidies or with on-site daycare settings.”

To view the study’s report, go to: http://economics.uchicago.edu/download/Bernal060205.pdf

Contributed by Joel Gordon

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