Is Subsidized Stay-at-Home Motherhood Bad for Kids? and Other Interesting New Research
The Rise of “Never Married” Single Ladies; Happy Women (Expect to) Have Kids; More Evidence That Helicopter Parents Aren’t Who You Think They Are; The Link Between Societal Pessimism & Fertility +
A note for newcomers: Welcome! This is a weekly round-up of newly published research on demography, family policy, and other family stuff. Some of the studies included here may be pre-prints or working papers and have not yet been peer reviewed. And while I have done my best to summarize their findings accurately, in the words of Ebenezer Scrooge, “I am a mortal, and liable to fall.” In other words, I hope you brought a pinch of salt with you.
Hello everyone,
The headline working paper I covered in last week’s newsletter led to such a fun discussion around these parts. Lots of people offered interesting theories for why a firstborn daughter would have a bigger negative impact on a mom’s employment and earnings than a firstborn son. And then lots of people called B.S., suspecting that perhaps the finding was a fluke or the study was methodologically compromised. It was a fascinating blend of “yeah, this tracks” and “sorry, doesn’t pass the sniff test for me.” All of that is, in my view, exactly as it ought to be. It is genuinely helpful for me, as a journalist, when readers share their thoughts on why one paper or another might not be terribly trustworthy. But occasionally, particularly when one of the findings covered here breaches containment, I get feedback that make me sliiiiiggghtly nervous that I have not made it clear enough, especially to newcomers, how this whole newsletter works.
When I first launched this Substack, I explained that it came about as an attempt to make better use of (and hopefully monetize, though I’m still working on that haha please consider becoming a paid subscriber!) all the work that goes into tracking research on “family stuff.” Doing so has become an integral part of my journalistic process—several of the pieces I have published over the years came about because I came across an interesting study, and then another and then another, which then allowed me to convince an editor to pay me to do a deep dive into a particular area of research. This newsletter round-up is a product of the first (and not the second) step in that process—the rifling through dozens of freshly published studies every week part, before someone has agreed to pay me to really look into them.
That means that, unfortunately, I can’t personally vouch for the methodological integrity of all of the studies I cover here. In fact, I can’t even promise that I am interpreting or summarizing them accurately—there is a reason that, when I do my more fleshed out reported work, I rarely report the findings of a study without first speaking to the authors to make sure I’m understanding it correctly. I am not wholly unqualified when it comes to breaking down academic research/statistical analysis, but the version of this newsletter where I include only the studies that I can guarantee are perfectly summarized and beyond reproach is a version that will never exist. So the only way this round-up is actually useful is if people read it with a certain “grain of salt” skepticism.
Anyway, I have been struggling to find a way to make that clearer to people, especially those who find their way here after seeing a snippet restacked on Notes or something. Eventually, I am going to update the About page of this publication with some guidance on this front, but for now I’ve decided to include a “grain of salt” disclaimer at the top of each round-up. Also, I’m going to try to be better about flagging when studies have not yet been through peer review, but, full disclosure, I’ve told myself I was going to do that in the past and then forgot. So call me out if you see me do it again!!
Okay, enough of that racket.
Is Subsidized Stay-at-Home Motherhood Bad for Kids?
Many people are familiar with the infamous study that investigated the long-run impacts of Quebec’s universal childcare program and found that “cohorts with increased child care access had worse health, lower life satisfaction, and higher crime rates later in life.” It got a lot of attention when it was first published and remains a lot of people’s go-to Daycare Bad study. Fewer people are aware that one of the authors of that study, the MIT Econ professor Jonathan Gruber, conducted a separate study investigating the short and long-term impacts of Finland’s home care allowance, which provides payments to parents who opt to “stay home” with their children rather than place them in formal, publicly funded childcare. (As we’ve covered before, nearly 90% of Finnish parents use the home care allowance, which is available until the child is three, for at least a little bit.)