In this article, developmental psychologists Ariel Kalil and Rebecca Ryan examine the relation between parenting practices and socioeconomic gaps in child outcomes. They document substantial differences between richer and poorer families, including growing gaps in parental engagement and time use. These gaps matter: the fact that children born to…

One of the most alarming social trends in the past 40 years is the increasing educational disadvantage of children raised in low-income families. Differences between low- and high-income children in reading and math achievement are much larger now than they were several decades ago, as are differences in college graduation rates. What might…

Numerous studies show large differences between economically advantaged and disadvantaged parents in the quality and quantity of their engagement in young children's development. This "parenting gap" may account for a substantial portion of the gap in children's early cognitive skills. However, researchers know little about whether the…

Objectives: We aim to understand why blacks are significantly less likely than whites to perpetuate their middle class status across generations. To do so, we focus on the potentially different associations between parental job loss and youth's educational attainment in black and white middle class families. Methods: We use data from the Panel…

Job loss remains a permanent feature of the American economy. Black and white children may experience parental job loss differently, even when they share the same class location. We address this question using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), following those children "born" into the survey between 1968 and 1979 and followed…

The links between single mothers' employment patterns and change over time in the well-being of the mothers' adolescent children were investigated using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Adolescents were ages 14 to 16 at baseline, and they and their mothers were followed for 2 years. Relative to being continuously employed in a good job,…

Cohabitation is an increasingly prevalent living arrangement in the United States. Although the effects of living in a cohabiting arrangement on child wellbeing are not fully understood, the literature on children growing up in cohabiting families suggests that they have poorer developmental outcomes than do those growing up in married-parent…

Investigated parenting behavior, parent/adolescent relationship, and adolescent attitudes and behaviors in three family types. Results showed minimal support for the hypothesis that welfare is negatively related to family processes and adolescent attitudes and behavior, although mothers receiving welfare reported fewer effective parent-management…