2011 The Palm Beach County Family Study (Full Report)

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Although mothers continued to report relatively low levels of education in the fifth year of the study,there was a slight increase in the percentage of mothers reporting some additional education beyond highschool. On the other hand, there was a decrease in the percentage of husbands/partners whose highestlevel of education was high school. 13In addition, 16 percent of the mothers also said they are currently in a full-time or part-time educationalprogram, an increase from the 8 percent who reported being in such a program in the first year. Over athird of those in an educational program are enrolled full time. One-third of those currently enrolled in aprogram reported being in a vocational or technical program, while just under one-third reported being ina 2-year or associate’s degree program. Eighteen percent reported being in a 4-year or bachelor’s degreeprogram, and 16 percent of the sample reported being in an English-as-a-second-language program. Theremaining 3 percent of mothers reported being in a GED program.Language and Literacy AbilitiesBeginning in the third year of the study, mothers whose primary language was not English—a little morethan half of the sample each year—were asked how well they spoke English. Across the 3 years, about 80percent of the mothers whose primary language was not English reported speaking English either “alittle” or “not at all” versus “well” or “very well” (see Table 5).Table 5. Language and Literacy Skills of Foreign-Born Mothers over Time aAbility Level% Mothers % Mothers % MothersYear 3 Year 4 Year 5How well you speak English (n=145) (n=145) (n=143)Very well 6 4 4Well 13 14 17A little 43 43 50Not at all 37 40 29How well you read English (n=167) (n=167) (n=167)Very well 16 15 13Well 15 13 17A little 34 35 35Not at all 35 38 35How well you write English (n=167) (n=167) (n=167)Very well 14 14 14Well 11 11 12A little 28 34 34Not at all 46 40 41a Data were weighted to adjust for oversampling of mothers from the Glades and mothers screened “at risk.”*Paired sample t-tests indicate that the following year-to-year differences are statistically significant at p < .05 or lower: speak3vs. speak5; speak4 vs. speak5.13 In some families, the person the mother identified as her partner changed, so some of this decrease may reflect the educationallevel of new partners. In year 1, all but three husbands/partners living in the household were the fathers of the focal child; in year2, all but nine; and in year 3, all but eight. In year 4, there was a dramatic increase, with 21 husbands/partners living in thehousehold who were not the fathers of the focal child; and in year 5, 25 husbands/partners living in the household were not thefathers of the focal child.Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago 13
There was, however, a significant change in English ability between years 4 and 5, when fewer mothers(40% in year 4 vs. 29% in year 5) reported that they did not speak any English “at all” (p < .01). Motherswhose primary language was not English assessed their literacy skills similarly; that is, across the 3 years,about 75 percent described their abilities to read and write English as only “a little” or “not at all.”Family Income and Economic SupportCorresponding in part to the increase in maternal employment, the percentage of mothers who reportedfamily incomes less than $20,000 declined from 66 percent in the first year to 46 percent in the fifth year(see Table 6). At the same time, the use of some income support programs has declined over time. Inparticular, 84 percent of the mothers in the year 5 sample reported using WIC in year 1, whereas only 52percent participated in the program in year 5. In addition, the relatively small percentage of familiesreceiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in year 1 (7%) declined further to 2 percentin year 5. These changes might reflect higher income levels from employment, which may render somestudy families ineligible for support; but they may also reflect other barriers to service use. Also,consistent with the increase in maternal employment, there was a significant increase in the proportion offamilies who received the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), as well as unemployment insurance (UI).Finally, it is of interest to note a significant increase in the proportion of families receiving rent vouchersbetween the first and fifth years of the study.The survey also asked the mothers about home ownership. A large majority (71%) continued to live inrented homes in the fifth year of the study, although this was less than the 80 percent in the first year. 14 Inaddition, we calculated the percentage of families living in poverty using the household size, the numberof children under age 18, and the federal poverty thresholds. In year 1, 69 percent of our sample reportedincomes at or below the federal poverty threshold for the previous year. In subsequent years, thepercentage of poor families remained fairly constant, and the percentage of those at or below thethreshold stood at 52 percent in year 5. 1514 The survey asked mothers to estimate their “total household income from all sources” for the previous year in broad categories(i.e., $10,000–$19,999 and $20,000–$39,999); thus, we categorized families according to whether or not they were above orbelow $20,000. It should be noted that estimating income can be difficult when income is irregular and unstable (e.g., Edin &Lein, 1997). This was the case in some of the study families, in which fathers who worked in construction or landscaping couldnot work when it rained, lost wages if they had to take time off to take a mother or child to the clinic, and experienced frequentchanges in the days and hours of their work.15 Because mothers were asked to estimate the income for the previous year, we calculated the income-to-need ratio based on thepoverty levels for the preceding year that corresponded to the year the majority of the interviews were conducted. (For example,three-quarters of the sample were first interviewed in 2005, so we used the 2004 income threshold under the Federal PovertyGuidelines to calculate the ratio for year 1.)Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago 14
Page 1 and 2: FifthMarciaGouvêa2011
Page 3: AcknowledgmentsThis fifth report of
Page 6 and 7: Chapin Hall at the University of Ch
Page 8 and 9: List of TablesTable 1. Components o
Page 10 and 11: Table 58. Logistic Regression of Mo
Page 12 and 13: Table C- 24. Mothers’ Baseline an
Page 16 and 17: • In addition, we observed a pote
Page 18 and 19: kind of out-of-home educational exp
Page 20 and 21: IntroductionOver the last three dec
Page 22 and 23: eadiness and school success and in
Page 24 and 25: The study’s comprehensive, longit
Page 26 and 27: Table 2. Characteristics of Mothers
Page 28 and 29: The Year 5 Study SampleTable 4 show
Page 30 and 31: Household Structure, Employment, an
Page 34 and 35: Table 6. Family Income and Economic
Page 36 and 37: Specifically, mothers living outsid
Page 38 and 39: at the birth of the focal child tha
Page 40 and 41: Table 10. Reasons for Transportatio
Page 42 and 43: Health, Healthcare, and ChildDevelo
Page 44 and 45: two years of the study. In year 1 1
Page 46 and 47: Subsequent Pregnancies and Prenatal
Page 48 and 49: Children’s HealthcareMost (80%) o
Page 50 and 51: private plans or HMOs increased sig
Page 52 and 53: outside the TGAs to report that all
Page 54 and 55: Children’s Behavior and Developme
Page 56 and 57: cultural norms regarding what sorts
Page 58 and 59: Table 21. Emerging Pre-academic Ski
Page 60 and 61: the year 5 interview, over three-qu
Page 62: various activities, mothers reporte
Page 66 and 67: Negative Parenting PracticesThere i
Page 68 and 69: Table 28. Fathers’ Negative Paren
Page 70 and 71: Table 30. Parent Involvement Activi
Page 72 and 73: Table 32. Mothers’ Positive Paren
Page 74 and 75: Table 34. Mothers’ Parent Involve
Page 76 and 77: The most frequent parent involvemen
Page 78 and 79: Figure 3. Primary Childcare Arrange
Page 80 and 81: for 6 months, but when the subsidy
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ecause it is of particular interest
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types of care between mothers whose
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Table 40. Characteristics of Mother
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Table 41). Of the 204 children, 91
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commented on their children’s nee
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nonparental childcare arrangement f
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Informal and Community SupportAn un
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Table 46. Frequency of Husband/Part
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We also asked the mothers about the
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Table 49. Type of Family/Friends Su
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Access to Support by TGAFigure 5 sh
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Use of Formal ServicesA central que
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Correlates of At-Risk StatusA large
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services after 6 months. Among the
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Enhanced ServicesEnhanced services
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Termination of MCHP ServicesAs prev
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services were fairly stable, althou
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languages. The fact that more mothe
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In interpreting these results, it s
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Overall, mothers reported seeking h
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We found that in years 2 and 3, aft
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We also found that mothers tended t
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variables that could potentially be
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significant levels of stress. Paren
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positive parenting items and 5 nega
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friend/neighbor/other), which were
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Table 60. Logistic Regression of Ch
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County in either fall 2009 or fall
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Figure 6. Percent of Focal Children
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Next, we conducted logistic regress
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Table 68. Selected Maternal and Chi
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R 2 .180*p < .05, **p < .01, or ***
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SummarySimilar to previous analyses
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less than a high school education,
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Parenting PracticesWhen surveyed in
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We also looked at the stability of
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Service Use, Maternal Functioning,
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Conclusions and ImplicationsMore th
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Meanwhile, our findings indicate th
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literacy skills, families who do no
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BibliographyAbidin, R. R. (1995). P
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Dinan, K. A. (2005a). Federal polic
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Leventhal, T., Brooks-Gunn, J., McC
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Weisner, T. S. (1984). A cross-cult
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What are pathways to service use? W
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Table A- 1. FOCiS Codes for MCHP Se
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Table A- 2. Interview Study Samplin
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Table A- 3. Household Survey Topics
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Table A- 5. Reasons for Sample Attr
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we sought to identify the ecologica
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Table B- 2. Characteritics of TGA M
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Figure B- 1. Characteristics of Mot
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Figure B- 5. Percentage of PBC Moth
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Table B- 5. Logistic Regression Pre
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Table B- 7. Characteristics of TGA
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Table B- 9. Logistic Regression Pre
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Type of Enhanced Service2009N% of M
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Table B- 12. Logistic Regression Pr
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Numberof BirthswithReferrals2009 TG
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Table B- 15. OLS Logistic Regressio
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Table C- 1. Selected Characteristic
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Table C- 4. Social and Emotional Be
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Table C- 7. Communication Skills of
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Table C- 11. Emerging Literacy and
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Table C- 14. Mothers’ Negative Pa
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Number of Different Arrangements ac
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Figure C- 1. Mean Days of MCHP Serv
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Table C- 19. Characteristics of Mot
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Table C- 22. Number of Service Area
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Table C- 23. Number of Services Use
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Table C- 25. Linear Regression Anal
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Table C- 27. Baseline Characteristi
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2011 The Palm Beach County Family Study (Full Report)

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