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Title: Mother's Education and Children's Outcomes: How Dual-Generation Programs Offer Increased Opportunities for America's Families
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2014
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Abstract: Executive Summary Policies and programs aimed at increasing educational and economic opportunities typically target either low-income children or their mothers, but not both, which limits their impact in fostering intergenerational mobility. This insight undergirds the development and implementation of dual-generation strategies, which focus simultaneously on both children and mothers to foster long-term learning and economic success for low-income families. The results in this report highlight the need for dual-generation strategies, based on the first-ever analysis of 13 economic, education, and health indicators for children whose mothers have not graduated from high school, compared to children whose mothers have higher levels of education. The enormous disparities in well-being identified here point toward the value and need for comprehensive dual-generation strategies that offer high-quality PreK-3 rd education for children, effective job training for parents that leads directly to well-paid work, and additional public services-such as health, nutrition, food, and housing-which enable low-income families to overcome barriers to success. There already exist a wide range of policies and programs that could be coordinated and integrated to create dual-generation strategies. But a major step forward will require more flexible, integrated, and supportive federal, state, and local policy structures. One in every eight children in the U.S. (12 percent) lives with a mother who has not graduated from high school. These children experience especially large disparities compared to children whose mothers have a bachelor degree. Key findings include the following: Family Economic Resources Disparities separating children whose (1) mothers had not graduated from high school, compared to those whose (2) mothers had a bachelor degree were, respectively: • 53 vs. 4 percent for the official federal poverty rate • 84 vs. 13 percent for the low-income rate (that is, family income below twice the official federal poverty threshold) • $25,000 vs. $106,500 for median family income • 48 vs. 11 percent for the rate of not having a securely employed parent in the home (that is, not having a parent who works full-time year-around)
Url: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED558149.pdf
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Authors: Hernandez, Donald J; Napierala, Jeffrey
Publisher: Foundation for Child Development
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Education, Family and Marriage
Countries: United States