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. 2008 Nov;44(6):1557-71.
doi: 10.1037/a0013913.

Welfare policies and very young children: experimental data on stage-environment fit

Heather D Hill  1 , Pamela Morris
Affiliations

Welfare policies and very young children: experimental data on stage-environment fit

Heather D Hill et al. Dev Psychol. 2008 Nov.

Abstract

The authors examined the effects of welfare programs that increased maternal employment and family income on the development of very young children using data from 5 random-assignment experiments. The children were 6 months to 3 years old when their mothers entered the programs; cognitive and behavioral outcomes were measured 2-5 years later. While there were no overall program impacts, positive or negative, on the development of children in this age group, there was a pair of domain- and age-specific effects: The programs decreased positive social behavior among 1-year-olds and increased school achievement among 2-year-olds. After exploring several explanations for these results, the authors suggest that the contextual changes engendered by the programs, including children's exposure to center-based child care, interacted differentially with specific developmental transitions.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Program impacts on later school achievement and positive social behavior of 1- and 2-year-olds by 6-month age groupings. * p < .01.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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