Income trajectories of families raising a child with a neurodisability

Abstract

Purpose

To examine household income trajectories of children with and without neurodisability over a period of 6 years.

Method

We used four cycles of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, a longitudinal study of the development and well-being of Canadian children from birth into adulthood.

Results

While household income increased over time for both groups, families of children with neurodisability had consistently lower household income compared to families of children without neurodisability even after controlling for child and family socio-demographic characteristics. The presence of an interaction effect between parent work status and child with neurodisability at baseline indicated that among children whose parent(s) were not working at baseline, household incomes did not differ between children with and without neurodisability.

Conclusions

The association between child with neurodisability and lower household income may not hold for all types of parents’, working status is an important consideration.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Findings support the health selection hypothesis that health status shapes diverging economic conditions over time: children with a ND have lower household incomes than children without a ND child across all waves of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

• Income gaps did not increase or decrease over time; rehabilitation services and policies must consider the lower average incomes associated with raising a child with a ND.

• Social assistance support likely plays a key role in closing the gap, especially for non-working families.

Keywords:

• Canada
• families
• income
• longitudinal
• neurodisability

Disclosure statement

The views expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of Statistics Canada.

The authors reported no conflict of interest.

Notes

1 The reference period for the parental work status item was changed after Cycle 1. In Cycle 1, the item asked current work status whereas in subsequent cycles, the item asked about the number of weeks worked for the year (e.g., worked full time 26–47 weeks of the year).

2 It is possible for both single and married or common-law parents to be represented in any of the three work categories. For example, single parents could be not working, working less than full time, or working full time. Possible combinations were more complex for married or common-law parents (e.g., neither parent working, one working full time, one part time, both full time, etc).

3 Consider that the low-income threshold for Canada in 2013 was $41,866. Source: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75f0002m/2015002/tbl/tbl03-eng.htm.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by funding received by Kids Brain Health Network from the National Centre of Excellence (Canada) [Grant #20000].