Maternal employment stability in early childhood: Links with child behavior and cognitive skills

Annual Research Review: The power of predictability - patterns of signals in early life shape neurodevelopment and mental health trajectories

The global burden of early life adversity (ELA) is profound. The World Health Organization has estimated that ELA accounts for almost 30% of all psychiatric cases. Yet, our ability to identify which individuals exposed to ELA will develop mental illness remains poor and there is a critical need to identify underlying pathways and mechanisms. This review proposes unpredictability as an understudied aspect of ELA that is tractable and presents a conceptual model that includes biologically plausible mechanistic pathways by which unpredictability impacts the developing brain. The model is supported by a synthesis of published and new data illustrating the significant impacts of patterns of signals on child development. We begin with an overview of the existing unpredictability literature, which has focused primarily on longer patterns of unpredictability (e.g. years, months, and days). We then describe our work testing the impact of patterns of parental signals on a moment-to-moment timescale, providing evidence that patterns of these signals during sensitive windows of development influence neurocircuit formation across species and thus may be an evolutionarily conserved process that shapes the developing brain. Next, attention is drawn to emerging themes which provide a framework for future directions of research including the evaluation of functions, such as effortful control, that may be particularly vulnerable to unpredictability, sensitive periods, sex differences, cross-cultural investigations, addressing causality, and unpredictability as a pathway by which other forms of ELA impact development. Finally, we provide suggestions for prevention and intervention, including the introduction of a screening instrument for the identification of children exposed to unpredictable experiences.

Association between maternal employment and the child´s mental health: a systematic review with meta-analysis

The recent rise in maternal workforce participation has led to more research regarding the role of maternal employment for (early) childhood mental health. This systematic review with meta-analysis covers new evidence on the association of both variables. A systematic literature search was conducted. Studies had to compare children 0-7 years of age on the basis of their mothers' employment status, working amount, employment duration, i.e., how long the mother had been back at work after birth, or timing of return to work. Child mental health was operationalized as behavior problems and prosocial behavior. Narrative and meta-analytic syntheses of evidence were conducted. Maternal employment was associated with more conduct problems but less internalizing behavior problems and anxious/depressed behavior in children; full-time employment was linked to more externalizing behavior problems and more hyperactivity/inattention. Longer employment duration was related to less (internalizing) behavior problems and more prosocial behavior but also more externalizing behavior problems. Narrative syntheses indicated early maternal return to work to be associated with more child externalizing behavior problems and less prosocial behavior. Whether maternal employment is associated with child mental health strongly depends on both variables' operationalization. Especially part-time employment, longer employment duration, and return to work only after the first year postpartum may be beneficial for child mental health. Practical implications pertain to an expanded offer of family leave and the endorsement of maternal employment after the first year postpartum. Here, factors that may buffer the negative associations with full-time employment warrant consideration.

Moderation of parental socioeconomic status on the relationship between birth health and developmental coordination disorder at early years

Objective

This study investigated whether parental SES moderates the effect of birth health on Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) in preschool children.

Methods

One hundred and twenty-two children aged 4 to 6 years were enrolled in the study. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children --2nd Edition (MABC-2) test was used to assess the motor coordination of children. They were preliminarily categorized into either the DCD (<=16th percentile, n = 23) or typically developing (TD) group (>16th percentile, n = 99) based on the testing results. All children in the DCD group were further confirmed to meet other diagnostic criteria of the DSM-V using the intellectual test and parental questionnaires. Moderation analysis was conducted using the PROCESS macro for SPSS, and 95% confidence intervals with a bootstrap procedure were calculated to identify the significant moderating effect.

Results

Maternal education (unstandardized coefficient = 0.6805, SE = 0.3371, p < 0.05) and maternal employment status (unstandardized coefficient = 0.6100, SE = 0.3059, p < 0.05) were found to moderate the relationship between birth length and the probability of having DCD. Moreover, the relationship between birth weight and the probability of having DCD was moderated by the annual household income (unstandardized coefficient = -0.0043, SE = 0.0022, p < 0.05).

Conclusion

The lower maternal education level and maternal unemployment strengthened the negative relationship between birth length and the probability of having DCD. Additionally, the negative relationship between birth weight and the probability of having DCD was statistically significant in high annual household salaries.

Developmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on young children: a conceptual model for research with integrated administrative data systems

The COVID-19 pandemic made its mark on the entire world, upending economies, shifting work and education, and exposing deeply rooted inequities. A particularly vulnerable, yet less studied population includes our youngest children, ages zero to five, whose proximal and distal contexts have been exponentially affected with unknown impacts on health, education, and social-emotional well-being. Integrated administrative data systems could be important tools for understanding these impacts. This article has three aims to guide research on the impacts of COVID-19 for this critical population using integrated data systems (IDS). First, it presents a conceptual data model informed by developmental-ecological theory and epidemiological frameworks to study young children. This data model presents five developmental resilience pathways (i.e. early learning, safe and nurturing families, health, housing, and financial/employment) that include direct and indirect influencers related to COVID-19 impacts and the contexts and community supports that can affect outcomes. Second, the article outlines administrative datasets with relevant indicators that are commonly collected, could be integrated at the individual level, and include relevant linkages between children and families to facilitate research using the conceptual data model. Third, this paper provides specific considerations for research using the conceptual data model that acknowledge the highly-localised political response to COVID-19 in the US. It concludes with a call to action for the population data science community to use and expand IDS capacities to better understand the intermediate and long-term impacts of this pandemic on young children.

Strengthening Social Programs to Promote Economic Stability during Childhood

Economic instability has increased in recent decades and is higher for families with low incomes and Black families. Such instability is thought to be driven primarily by precarious work and unstable family structure. In addition, the social safety net has become less of a stabilizing force for low‐income families, in part because benefits are often tied to employment and earnings. Too much change in economic circumstances may disrupt investments in children, parenting practices, and family routines—particularly if the economic changes are unpredictable, undesired, or not part of upward mobility. Given the considerable evidence that economic circumstances affect child health and development, economic stability can and should be an important goal of multiple policy domains. In this report, we describe economic instability, review the pertinent theories for considering how economic instability might matter to children, and describe ideas for policies that could reduce or moderate instability. We include policies that reduce instability in earnings, use public assistance to stabilize income or reduce material hardship, or enhance parents' capacity to deal with or avoid instability.