What Money Can't Buy for Children: Family Income and Children's Life Chances (Harvard University Press, 1997). Sociologist Susan Mayer concludes that once basic material needs are met, the characteristics of parents, such as skills, honesty, good health, and reliability, are more important to how children turn out than anything more money can buy. According to Mayer, it's not that additional parental income doesn't improve children's life chances, it's just that additional income is not as important as many social scientists have thought, and the relationship between parental income and children's outcomes is a lot more complicated than most people have thought.
Mayer employs five strategies to assess the causality between parental income and children's outcomes. She measures the effect of income from various sources; the apparent effect of parental income before and after an outcome; the effects of parental investment in children (e.g., what they buy, and even the impact of their psychological well-being). She then assesses trends in parental income and children's outcomes, and exognenous sources of income variation, such as government policies.
Her estimates suggest that conventional models of the effect of income overstate its importance to children's outcomes. She points out that cash and noncash transfers have helped reduce the most serious material deprivations experienced by American children, and appear to have narrowed the gap between rich and poor children's material living conditions. Mayer concludes from her results that although children's opportunities are unequal, income inequality is not the primary reason. "But if advantage comes from noneconomic factors, such as having parents who love to read or do math, and love rather than tolerate their children, it will be much harder to equalize opportu nity," is her sober conclusion.
The Urban Crisis: Linking Research to Action (Northwestern University Press, 1997) is the product of a Metropolitan Assembly convened by IPR in 1994 to identify the obstacles to solving many of the most severe problems faced by cities. Edited by Burton Weisbrod (IPR-Economics) and James Worthy (IPR-Management), the book presents commissioned papers by leading sociologists and economists that examine how employment is linked to welfare reform ( Greg Duncan, IPR-Education), crime (Jeffrey Fagan, Columbia University), housing and transportation patterns (Roberto Fernandez, Stanford), and schools (James Rosenbaum , IPR-Education). Other chapters focus on the problem of coordinating the actions of local governments in a metropolitan region (Howard Chernick, Hunter College, and Andrew Reschovsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison), and the obstacles confronting public-private partnership efforts to collaborate effectively in addressing urban problems (Jerome Rothenberg, MIT).
The book also presents the views of policymakers about what they need from the research community as they seek solutions. It concludes with an urban research agenda that outlines crucial questions that must be addressed in order to formulate more effective public policies.
Consequences of Growing Up Poor (Russell Sage Foundation, 1997). In this collaborative work, editors Greg Duncan (IPR-Education) and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn of Columbia Univer sity and 33 other social scientists examine how economic deprivation damages childrenintellectually, emotionally, and physicallyat all stages of development. They find these effects are selective, however. Low-income preschoolers, for example, exhibit poorer cognitive and verbal skills because they are generally exposed to fewer toys, books, and other stimulating experiences at home. In later years, conflict between economically stressed parents raises anxiety and lowers self-esteem in their teenage children.
The book also examines the effect of timing on children's vulnerability to poverty. Some investigators find, for example, that poverty in the prenatal or early childhood years is particularly detrimental to cognitive development and physical health. Others report a stronger negative effect during adolescence. There is also discussion of whether family conditions such as marital status, education, and involvement of parents mitigate the ill effects of poverty.
Based on their research, the editors and authors recom mend more sharply focused child welfare policies targeted to specific eras and conditions of poor children's lives. They also weigh the relative need for income supplements, child care subsidies, and home interventions.