Herbst Chris M, Tekin Erdal
School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University and IZA, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
Health Econ. 2014 Aug;23(8):894-916. doi: 10.1002/hec.2964. Epub 2013 Jul 8.
A complete account of the US child care subsidy system requires an understanding of its implications for both parental and child well-being. Although the effects of child care subsidies on maternal employment and child development have been recently studied, many other dimensions of family well-being have received little attention. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining the impact of child care subsidy receipt on maternal health and the quality of child-parent interactions. The empirical analyses use data from three nationally representative surveys, providing access to numerous measures of family well-being. In addition, we attempt to handle the possibility of non-random selection into subsidy receipt by using several identification strategies both within and across the surveys. Our results consistently indicate that child care subsidies are associated with worse maternal health and poorer interactions between parents and their children. In particular, subsidized mothers report lower levels of overall health and are more likely to show symptoms consistent with anxiety, depression, and parenting stress. Such mothers also reveal more psychological and physical aggression toward their children and are more likely to utilize spanking as a disciplinary tool. Together, these findings suggest that work-based public policies aimed at economically disadvantaged mothers may ultimately undermine family well-being.
要全面了解美国儿童保育补贴系统，就需要明白其对父母福祉和儿童福祉的影响。尽管近期已对儿童保育补贴对母亲就业和儿童发展的影响展开研究，但家庭福祉的许多其他方面却很少受到关注。本文试图通过考察获得儿童保育补贴对母亲健康以及亲子互动质量的影响来填补这一空白。实证分析使用了来自三项全国代表性调查的数据，从而能够获取众多衡量家庭福祉的指标。此外，我们尝试通过在调查内部和调查之间运用多种识别策略来处理补贴领取方面非随机选择的可能性。我们的结果始终表明，儿童保育补贴与母亲健康状况较差以及父母与子女之间较差的互动有关。具体而言，领取补贴的母亲报告的整体健康水平较低，而且更有可能表现出与焦虑、抑郁和育儿压力相符的症状。这类母亲还对自己的孩子表现出更多的心理和身体攻击行为，并且更有可能将打屁股作为一种管教手段。这些发现共同表明，针对经济弱势母亲的基于工作的公共政策最终可能会损害家庭福祉。
