Factors shaping mother-child interaction in post-Soviet countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia

ABSTRACT

Previous research has demonstrated a positive and long-running effect of mother-child interaction on numerous areas of child development. Yet, most of what is currently known derives from research on children in Western countries. Employing data from recent Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) on women (ages 15–49), this study examined factors shaping mother-child interaction across the post-Soviet countries of Belarus (N = 3,413), Georgia (N = 2,004), Kazakhstan (N = 5,084), Kyrgyzstan (N = 4,272), Moldova (N = 1,744), Tajikistan (N = 4,204), Turkmenistan (N = 2,064), and Uzbekistan (N = 4,939). The average number of mother-child interactions was highest in Georgia and lowest in Kyrgyzstan. Mother-child interaction was significantly lower for younger children, older mothers, and poorer households. Initiation of mass-communication campaigns and parent-child programmes could reduce differences in the number of interactions and improve the quality of maternal time dedicated to children.

KEYWORDS:

• Mother-child interaction
• child development
• post-Soviet countries
• Eastern Europe
• Central Asia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

This manuscript does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Notes on contributors

Hakim Zainiddinov (diploma, Tajik State University; MSSW, Columbia University; MA, Rutgers University; Ph.D., Rutgers University) is a part-time lecturer in the department of sociology at Rutgers University. Special interests include health policies and disparities in post-Soviet countries, state–religion relationship, globalization, race and ethnicity, and Islam in the United States.

Dr. Nazim Habibov is Professor at School of Social Work, University of Windsor, Canada. He focuses on social welfare policy development and evaluation in postcommunist and developing countries.

Notes

1 Our search strategy to locate literature for the current study involved searching PsycINFO, CogNet Library, Pubmed, and Medline computerized databases using various specific keywords applicable to the topic of Factors Shaping Mother-Child Interaction, including ‘mother-child interact*’ and ‘parent-child interact*’ together with ‘correlate*’, ‘predict*’, ‘influence’, ‘determine*’, and ‘shape’. We did set a date limit on the search as early as ‘1989’. In order to be considered for inclusion, a study had to satisfy three criteria: (1) Report on mother-child interaction as an outcome variable; (2) Use multivariate regression analysis to report on at least one socio-demographic correlate, predictor, or determinant that influences mother-child interaction; (3) Be published in English.

2 All available MICS datasets are accessible on http://mics.unicef.org/surveys. Dataset access is granted to registered MICS data users free of charge and for research purposes only.