The remarkable thing that happens to poor kids when you give their parents a little money
This from the
Wonkblog at the Washington Post:
Twenty years ago, a group of researchers began tracking the
personalities of 1,420 low income children in North Carolina. At the
time, the goal was simple: to observe the mental conditions of kids
living in rural America. But then a serendipitous thing happened.
Four years into The Great Smoky Mountains Study of Youth,
the families of roughly a quarter of the children saw a dramatic and
unexpected increase in annual income. They were members of the Eastern
Band of Cherokee Indians, and a casino had just been built on the
reservation. From that point on every tribal citizen earned a share of
the profits, meaning about an extra $4,000 a year per capita.
For
these families, the extra padding was a blessing, enough to
boost household incomes by almost 20 percent on average. But for the
fields of psychology, sociology and economics, it has been a gold mine,
too. The sudden change in fortunes has offered a rare glimpse into the
subtle but important ways in which money can alter a child’s life. The
dataset is so rich that researchers continue to study it to this day.
"It
would be almost impossible to replicate this kind of longitudinal
study,” said Randall Akee, a professor at the University of California,
Los Angeles, who studies the impact of changes in household income.
“Especially for a sample this large. This is the sort of circumstance
you dream of as a researcher."
Seizing the opportunity, Akee,
along with a team of other researchers, recently revisited the data to
analyze each child’s personality both in the years before the casino was
built and in those after.
As part of the original study, the
children and parents were asked a series of questions, designed to
measure, among other things, a number of personality traits. The same
questions were posed every other year, for a decade. Akee's goal was to
observe any changes—positive or negative—resulting from the extra
household income. Their findings, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research last month, are nothing short of remarkable.
"This
was hugely important to the development of the children, to their
wellbeing” said Akee. "And the effect wasn’t small either—it was
actually fairly large."
Not only did the extra income appear to
lower the instance of behavioral and emotional disorders among the
children, but, perhaps even more important, it also boosted two key
personality traits that tend to go hand in hand with long-term
positive life outcomes.
The first is conscientiousness. People
who lack it tend to lie, break rules and have trouble paying attention.
The second is agreeableness, which leads to a comfort around people and
aptness for teamwork. And both are strongly correlated with various
forms of later life success and happiness.
The researchers also
observed a slight uptick in neuroticism, which, they explained, is a
good sign. Neuroticism is generally considered to be a positive trait so
long as one does not have too much of it.
"We're talking about
all sorts of good, positive, long-term things," said Emilia Simeonova, a
professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies the economics of
health, and one of the paper's co-authors. "There are very powerful
correlations between conscientiousness and agreeableness and the ability
to hold a job, to maintain a steady relationship. The two allow for
people to succeed socially and professionally."
Remarkably, the
change was the most pronounced in the children who were the most
deficient. "This actually reduces inequality with respect to personality
traits," said Akee. "On average, everyone is benefiting, but in
particular it's helping the people who need it the most."
Why
exactly this happened with the children neither Akee nor any of his
co-researchers can say with absolute certainty. Not even Jane Costello, a
professor at Duke University who was part of the team that initiated
the original study and co-authored the recent paper can say. But they
have a few ideas, based on observable changes in the families after the
casino was built and the extra money started to flow in.
They
know, based on the interviews with parents, that the relationship
between spouses tended to improve as a result. They also know that the
relationship between the parents and their children tended to improve.
And they know that parents tended to drink less alcohol.
"There
is a lot of literature that shows in order to change outcomes among
children you are best off treating the parents first," said Simeonova.
"And these are really clear changes in the parents."
There's also
the question of stress, which the extra money helps relieve—even if
only a little. While the added income wasn't enough to allow parents to
quit their jobs, it's a base level that helped with rent and food and
other basic expenses. That, Akee said, is powerful enough itself.
"We
know that the thing poor couples fight about the most is money," he
said. "Off the bat, this means a more harmonious family environment."
And
some of the families, given the boost, even moved to areas with
slightly better census tracts in terms of both income and education.
They were, in other words, able to expose their children to a different
group of peers.
For the most part, scientists agree that the
window for improvement in a child's cognitive abilities is short-lived.
By the age of about 8, children have set themselves on a path, Akee
said. What comes next happens, more or less, within the confines of the
limits that were created in their early years.
One's personality, on the other hand, is malleable well into adolescence. What's more, the changes tend to be fairly permanent.
"All
of the evidence points to the idea if they change in the teenage years,
they will stay changed forever," said Akee. "In this case, the kids
will likely maintain a different level of conscientiousness and
agreeableness for life."
Experts have known about the power of
intervention for some time. A lot of previous research has shown that
educational interventions can have sizable impacts on personality traits
and, in turn, life outcomes. But rarely, if ever before, have
researchers been able to observe the impact of a change in income across
such a large group.
The takeaway isn't that casinos are
inherently benevolent institutions. But rather that money—even modest
sums—can be a pretty powerful thing. And for reasons most would
likely overlook.
"We
know that low income kids are worse off in a number of ways, in terms
of cognitive abilities and behavioral disorders, than their counterparts
in much more affluent areas," said Simeonova. "Now we have a sense of
what even just a little money can do to change these things, to change
their lives."
Hat tip to Jamie.
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