Maternal Education, Changing Family Circumstances, and Children’s Skill Development in the United States and UK

Abstract

Among the core dimensions of socioeconomic status, maternal education is the most strongly associated with children’s cognitive development, and is a key predictor of other resources within the family that strongly predict children’s well-being: economic insecurity, family structure, and maternal depression. Most studies examine these circumstances in isolation of one another and/or at particular points in time, precluding a comprehensive understanding of how the family environment evolves over time and contributes to educational disparities in children’s skill development and learning. In addition, very little research examines whether findings observed among children in the United States can be generalized to children of a similar age in other countries. We use latent class analysis and data from two nationally representative birth cohort studies that follow children from birth to age five to examine two questions: 1) how do children’s family circumstances evolve throughout early childhood, and 2) to what extent do these trajectories account for the educational gradient in child skill development? Cross-national analysis reveals a good deal of similarity between the U.S. and U.K. in patterns of family life during early childhood, and in the degree to which those patterns contribute to educational inequality in children’s skill development.