Anna Gassman-Pines

The effects of antipoverty programs on children's cumulative level of poverty-related risk.

The authors examined the effects of antipoverty programs on childrens cumulative poverty-related risk and the relationship between cumulative poverty-related risk and child outcomes among low-income families. Samples included 419 children ages 3-10 years in the New Hope program and 759 children ages 2-9 years in the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP), which tested 2 program approaches. Nine poverty-related risks made up the measure of cumulative risk. Both MFIP program approaches reduced cumulative poverty-related risk. New Hope reduced cumulative poverty-related risk among long-term welfare recipients. In both New Hope and MFIP, significant linear relationships between cumulative poverty-related risk and parent-reported behavior problems and school achievement were found. Cumulative poverty-related risk partially mediated the impacts of the MFIP programs on childrens behavior problems. Among long-term welfare recipients, cumulative poverty-related risk partially mediated New Hopes impact on parent-reported school achievement.

Early Childhood Family Structure and Mother-Child Interactions: Variation by Race and Ethnicity.

With data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n = 6,449), a nationally representative sample of births in 2001, we used hierarchical linear modeling to analyze differences in observed interactions between married, cohabiting, never-married, and divorced mothers and their children. In contrast to previous studies, we concentrated on early childhood, a developmentally critical period that has been understudied in the family structure literature, and relied on objective observational measures of mother-child interactions, which are unlikely to be biased by maternal perceptions of interactions with children. Nonmarital family structures were common in the lives of young children, as 32% lived outside of a married, biological parent home. Initial results indicated that married families were consistently associated with higher quality interactions. Moreover, though it was hypothesized that the presence of a biological father might be associated with higher quality interactions than single-parent households, this hypothesis was not confirmed. Additional models suggest that race and ethnicity moderated the effect of family structure, as non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White participants showed little significant variation between married and unmarried families. Among Hispanics, mothers living in cohabiting, divorced, or single families, when compared to married mothers, exhibited more negative and more intrusive behaviors; cohabiting mothers also scored lower on the measure of cognitive stimulation. Results suggest that marriage may not be uniformly associated with higher levels of mother-child interactions and that cohabitation, particularly for Hispanics, may be associated with adverse outcomes.

Community-Wide Job Loss and Teenage Fertility: Evidence From North Carolina

Using North Carolina data for the period 1990–2010, we estimate the effects of economic downturns on the birthrates of 15- to 19-year-olds, using county-level business closings and layoffs as a plausibly exogenous source of variation in the strength of the local economy. We find little effect of job losses on the white teen birthrate. For black teens, however, job losses to 1 % of the working-age population decrease the birthrate by around 2 %. Birth declines start five months after the job loss and then last for more than one year. Linking the timing of job losses and conceptions suggests that black teen births decline because of increased terminations and perhaps also because of changes in prepregnancy behaviors. National data on risk behaviors also provide evidence that black teens reduce sexual activity and increase contraception use in response to job losses. Job losses seven to nine months after conception do not affect teen birthrates, indicating that teens do not anticipate job losses and lending confidence that job losses are “shocks” that can be viewed as quasi-experimental variation. We also find evidence that relatively advantaged black teens disproportionately abort after job losses, implying that the average child born to a black teen in the wake of job loss is relatively more disadvantaged.

Midpregnancy Marriage and Divorce: Why the Death of Shotgun Marriage Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Conventional wisdom holds that births following the colloquially termed “shotgun marriage”—that is, births to parents who married between conception and the birth—are nearing obsolescence. To investigate trends in shotgun marriage, we matched North Carolina administrative data on nearly 800,000 first births among white and black mothers to marriage and divorce records. We found that among married births, midpregnancy-married births (our preferred term for shotgun-married births) have been relatively stable at about 10 % over the past quarter-century while increasing substantially for vulnerable population subgroups. In 2012, among black and white less-educated and younger women, midpregnancy-married births accounted for approximately 20 % to 25 % of married first births. The increasing representation of midpregnancy-married births among married births raises concerns about well-being among at-risk families because midpregnancy marriages may be quite fragile. Our analysis revealed, however, that midpregnancy marriages were more likely to dissolve only among more advantaged groups. Of those groups considered to be most at risk of divorce—namely, black women with lower levels of education and who were younger—midpregnancy marriages had the same or lower likelihood of divorce as preconception marriages. Our results suggest an overlooked resiliency in a type of marriage that has only increased in salience.

Food Instability and Academic Achievement: A Quasi-Experiment Using SNAP Benefit Timing:

Although social policies aimed at low-income families are thought to promote children’s educational success, little research has examined how these policies are related to children’s academic achievement. This article focuses on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the United States’ largest food assistance program. Using administrative data on over 148,000 SNAP-receiving public school children, we analyze the recency of SNAP benefit transfer and children’s end-of-grade math and reading achievement test scores. Results indicate differences in students’ math and reading performance based on the recency of SNAP benefit transfer. Although the relationship is stronger for reading than for math, the relationship between students’ test scores and SNAP transfer is roughly curvilinear. Test scores peak in the third week following benefit transfer.

Local Job Losses and Child Maltreatment: The Importance of Community Context

A growing body of literature suggests that economic downturns predict an increase in child maltreatment. However, to inform policies and practices to prevent and intervene in child maltreatment, it is necessary to identify how, when, and under what conditions community-level economic conditions affect child maltreatment. In this study, we use North Carolina administrative data from 2006 to 2011 on child maltreatment reports and job losses to distinguish effects on maltreatment frequency from effects on severity, identify the timing of these effects, and test whether community characteristics moderate these effects. To isolate effects of unanticipated job losses and to control for potential confounding factors, we use a fixed effects regression approach. We find that, though job losses did not affect the frequency of reports, job losses increased the share of reports that were relatively severe. This effect endured for 9 months following job losses and was only evident in economically disadvantaged communities.

“His” and “Hers”: Meeting the Economic Bar to Marriage

Scholars have suggested that low-income parents avoid marriage because they have not met the so-called economic bar to marriage. The economic bar is multidimensional, referring to a bundle of financial achievements that determine whether couples feel ready to wed. Using the Building Strong Families data set of low-income parents (n = 4,444), we operationalized this qualitative concept into a seven-item index and examined whether couples who met the economic bar by achieving the majority of the items were more likely to marry than couples who did not. Meeting the bar was associated with a two-thirds increase in marriage likelihood. The bar was not positively associated with cohabitation, suggesting that it applies specifically to marriage. When we examined different definitions of the bar based on whether the mother, father, or both parents contributed items, all variants were associated with marriage, even if the bar was based on the mother’s economic accomplishments alone. When mothers contributed to the economic bar, they reported significantly higher relationship quality. Our results reinforce the importance of the multidimensional economic bar for marriage entry, highlighting the role of maternal economic contributions in low-income relationships.

Use of Informal Safety Nets during the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefit Cycle: How Poor Families Cope with Within-Month Economic Instability

Poor families often combine public benefits with social network and community resources to cope with economic instability. This study shows that decisions to combine formal and informal resources are as dynamic as the economic instability they are intended to buffer. Using survey data of poor families receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in Durham, North Carolina, this study takes advantage of the within-month economic instability created by the SNAP benefit cycle to show how families intentionally combine their formal and informal resources throughout a benefit month. Results show that families receiving SNAP benefits are more likely to borrow money for food 3 weeks after receiving SNAP benefits. Household food insecurity remains stable throughout the SNAP month, suggesting that this use of families’ informal social safety nets may effectively buffer against economic instability.

Psychological Acculturation and Parenting Behaviors in Mexican-Immigrant Families:

This study examined the relation between mothers’ and fathers’ psychological acculturation and parenting behaviors in two samples of Mexican-immigrant families. The middle childhood sample included 47 mothers, 38 fathers, and 46 children in families with children aged 9 to 12 years, and the early childhood sample included 185 mothers and 155 fathers in families with children aged 2 to 6 years. In both samples, compared with families in which fathers reported feeling connected only to Latino culture, fathers who reported feeling connected to both Latinos and Americans engaged in fewer aversive and withdrawn interactions and more warm interactions with children. In families where fathers reported feeling connected to both Latinos and Americans, mothers also engaged in fewer aversive and withdrawn interactions and more warm interactions with children. Results were consistent across the two samples and across different family member reports of parent–child interactions.