Résultats de recherche

1. Objectifs

Intentions :
« However, the main focus of our analysis will be on the effect of income, its level and stability on the development of children. » (p. 2)
Questions/Hypothèses :
« -How much income fluctuation and of what magnitude do children’s families experience year to year?
- What proportion of children spend sometime in lower income situations? How long do children spend living in poverty? What proportion leave or enter lower income situations?
- How important is income in affecting children’s outcomes as measured by cognitive and behavioural measures?
- Does income have a different effect on children at different ages or stages of development?
- What proportion of these income fluctuations are related to labour market changes and what proportion are related to changes in familial structure? » (p. 2)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
« [...] [D]ata from the share file of the first two cycles (1994-1995 and 1996-1997) of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). We focus on the cohort of children aged from 2 to 13 years old in 1996 (ages 0 to 11 in 1994), yielding a sample of 15,266 children to investigate the research questions. » (p. 3)

Instruments :
Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model following Blau (1999) and Mayer (1997).
Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

« Research in Canada and elsewhere has shown a link between economic disadvantage and a broad range of poor child developmental outcomes. Despite this research, however, the exact nature and strength of the relationship between a family’s economic circumstances and their children’s developmental outcomes is still open to debate. The aim of this paper is to examine only one aspect of the economic welfare of a family, namely, the impact that income has on children’s development in Canada. Our study provides an initial assessment of the evidence of the effect of income on child development. [...]
The results demonstrate that the effect of income on children’s behavioural and cognitive outcomes is for the most part significant, even after the application of controls, but is relatively small. This finding concurs with much of the previous research. Research literature has shown that income may affect children through their home environment. The authors construct a home- environment index, which is a preliminary proxy of the HOME psychometric scale measure used in previous American research. With this index, children from affluent families are shown to tend to have slightly better and more stimulating home environments than children from families with lower income.
The study concludes that, with only the two cycles of the NLSCY, one cannot yet determine the exact nature of the income and child-development link. The findings support the notion that the impact of income on children’s development is weak to moderate for many of the child outcomes examined. However, the findings also suggest that, through a variety of variables, income does have an impact on children’s development. » (p. iii)