The effects of child care subsidies on children’s health and developmental outcomes

ABSTRACT

Using a subsample of the Fragile Families and Child Well-being data set of 1430 low-income families with young children, the present study examines the direct and indirect effects of child care subsidies on children’s health and developmental outcomes. The current investigation focuses on the indirect mediating effects of child care subsidies on child development as they are transmitted through mothers’ employment, income, depression, and parenting. The results indicate that child care subsidies were positively indirectly associated with child cognitive development. Mothers who received child care subsidies were more likely to be employed and have higher incomes than were those that did not, and these characteristics were associated with better cognitive development in their children. There were also significant pathways found from child care subsidies to mothers’ employment, family income to maternal depression, and parenting quality to children’s cognitive development. No significant effects of child care subsidies on children’s health and behavior problems were found in the current data set. The findings suggest that child care subsidies are beneficial to mothers and indirectly beneficial to their children. Thus, these findings suggest policy interventions and implications for practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Child care subsidies
• child development
• depression
• parenting
• health
• cognitive development
• behavior problems

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Income eligibility for child care assistance programs varies by state (e.g. 33% of the state median income in Maryland; 50% of the state median income in Connecticut and Massachusetts; 85% of the state median income in Colorado, Hawaii, and Texas; 150% of the FPL in New Mexico and Montana; 160% of the FPL in Tennessee; 175% of the FPL in South Dakota; 180% of the FPL in Rhode Island; 200% of the FPL in Pennsylvania, New York; 250% of the FPL in Maine). In our study, 200% of the FPL was used as the inclusion criterion.