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Thursday, May 11, 2006

Study: Family income and the well-being of children

1994 to 1998

The well-being of children appears to be almost always associated with the household income of their family, according to a study recently published jointly by Human Resources and Social Development Canada and the Research Data Centre program.

The study found that regardless of the child's age or how household income is measured, higher income tends to be related to better physical, social/emotional, cognitive and behavioural well-being among children.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, the study examined the relationships between various measures of household income and a broad range of physical, social/emotional, cognitive and behavioural characteristics of a child's well-being.

The study divided a group of children aged 4 to 15 into three groups (the pre-school/school entry phase, the early school years, and the early teen years) to reflect different stages of child development.

Although the extent of the association varied depending on the characteristics of well-being used, children from lower income families were found to have worse outcomes than children from higher income households. This held for all three age groups.

The study found that increases in household income continue to remain associated with better well-being, even once children are out of low income. In fact, the results did not find a point at which high household income stops being associated with better child well-being.

However, the analysis was unable to determine the extent to which the relationship between family income and child well-being is causal. It may be that income serves as a proxy for other family characteristics that have an effect on child outcomes.

Longer-term income averaged over time consistently has the largest associations with child outcomes compared to using current income. This is true across almost all kinds of outcomes and all ages of children as well as for children living in married-couple or lone-mother families.

From an analytical perspective, the study also found that the pattern of the relationship between income and child outcomes can differ across outcomes for younger children. Sometimes, outcomes improve very quickly, other times more slowly as income increases.

Note: Data for this study came from Cycles 1-3 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. The analysis was conducted at the Atlantic Research Data Centre at Dalhousie University. The Research Data Centre program is part of an initiative by Statistics Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and university consortia to strengthen Canada's social research capacity. There are 16 centres currently operating at various universities.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 4450.

The research paper Income and the Outcomes of Children (11F0019MIE2006281, free) is now available. To obtain a copy, go to the Our products and services page online.

Related studies from the Business and Labour Market Analysis Division can be found at Update on Analytical Studies (11-015-XIE, free) on our website.

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of these articles, contact Shelley Phipps (902-494-6987) or Lynn Lethbridge (902-494-1636), Department of Economics, Dalhousie University.

For more information about the Research Data Centre program, contact Gustave Goldmann (613-951-1472), Research Data Centre program.



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Date Modified: 2006-05-11 Important Notices