Socioeconomic Impact On Child Development

The impact of socioeconomic status defined by household income or parental education is significant in understanding child’s emotions, behaviors, and learning. It is generally believed that emotional, behavioral, and learning difficulties are more common for children whose families are in a lower socioeconomic status or whose parents have a lower level of educational attainment. Likewise, many studies done in the past argue that socioeconomic status has a crucial influence for child development.

In a study by Shaffer, Suveg, Thomassin, and Bradbury (2012), researchers examined the effect of risk factors such as household income and educational attainment of parents on children’s emotional experiences including emotion regulation and dysregulation. It included 97 mother and child dyads with children aged from 7 to 12 combined from two separate studies. These participants were ethnically and demographically diverse that had 59% White, 31% African American, 4% Hispanic, and 2% Asian. Interestingly, over 50% of Whites reported having incomes above $50,000 whereas over 50% of African American reported having incomes below $30,000. The result indicated that family risks are related to children’s emotional regulation, but mostly due to unsupportive parental reactions to children’s negative emotions. Specifically, the study found that higher family risks were related to unsupportive parental reactions, which led to increased emotional dysregulation of children although it did not mention about differences in race/ethnicity.

Dodge, Pettit, and Bates (1994) also examined the lack of social support in their study of the relationship between socioeconomic status and child conduct problems. Researchers gathered data from mothers and...

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...ienced food insufficiency were more likely than others to have negative outcomes. Specifically, some of the negative outcomes included difficulty in peer relationships, more likely to go see psychologists, and a higher chance to repeat a grade. Therefore, Alimo et al. concluded that adequate food and nutrition is a significant factor in child development.

Many studies focus on socioeconomic factors and its impact on child development, but it seems as though there are not enough researches about how race/ethnicity influences a child’s well-being. However, socioeconomic status and race and ethnicity are very closely related so it might be difficult to distinguish the two factors. Thus, it might be helpful to explore the impact of race/ethnicity on developmental outcomes but considering the socioeconomic status of those racial and ethnic groups at the same time.