Smith J R, Brooks-Gunn J, Kohen D, McCarton C
Graduate School of Social Services, Fordham University, New York, NY 10023, USA.
Child Dev. 2001 Sep-Oct;72(5):1512-33. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00363.
The goal of current national and state legislation on welfare reform is to decrease the number of people who are dependent on public assistance, most of whom are mothers and their young children. Mothers' patterns of welfare receipt in the 3 years following the birth of a child were examined vis-à-vis their associations with maternal emotional distress (General Health Questionnaire), provision of learning experiences (Home Observation of the Measurement of the Environment), parenting behavior, and the child's cognitive test score (Stanford-Binet) in the third year of life. The data set was the Infant Health and Development Program, an eight-site randomized clinical trial designed to test the efficacy of educational and family support services in reducing developmental delays in low-birthweight, preterm infants (N = 833). Strong negative associations were found between receiving welfare and parenting behavior and child outcomes at age 3 years. Outcomes varied depending on when the mother received public assistance (earlier or later in her child's first 3 years) and family poverty status on leaving welfare. The parenting behavior of mothers who had left welfare by their child's third birthday was more likely to be authoritarian if she had left public assistance without also leaving poverty. Implications of these findings for the well-being of children in low-income families are discussed.
当前国家和州层面福利改革立法的目标是减少依赖公共援助的人数，其中大多数是母亲及其年幼子女。研究了孩子出生后3年内母亲领取福利的模式，并将其与母亲的情绪困扰（一般健康问卷）、学习经历的提供（家庭环境观察量表）、育儿行为以及孩子3岁时的认知测试分数（斯坦福-比奈智力量表）进行关联分析。数据集来自婴儿健康与发展项目，这是一项在八个地点开展的随机临床试验，旨在测试教育和家庭支持服务在减少低体重早产儿发育迟缓方面的效果（N = 833）。研究发现，领取福利与3岁时的育儿行为和孩子的成长结果之间存在强烈的负相关。结果因母亲领取公共援助的时间（在孩子出生后的前3年中是较早还是较晚）以及离开福利时的家庭贫困状况而异。如果孩子3岁生日时母亲已离开福利，但未摆脱贫困，那么她的育儿行为更有可能是专制型的。本文讨论了这些研究结果对低收入家庭儿童福祉的影响。
