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Parental Spending on School-Age Children: Structural Stratification and Parental Expectation
Lingxin Hao1, Wei-Jun Jean Yeung
1Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA, hao@jhu.edu.
Demography
|May 3, 2015
Summary
Parents
Area of Science:
- Socioeconomic factors and child development
- Family economics and resource allocation
Background:
- Consumption expenditures are key indicators of children's material well-being.
- Understanding parental financial resource allocation to individual children is limited.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how parents allocate financial resources among children.
- To analyze the influence of socioeconomic status, race, and parental expectations on parental spending.
Main Methods:
- Utilized child-level expenditure data from the Child Supplements of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID).
- Employed quantile regression to model the distribution of parental spending on children.
- Developed a conceptual framework integrating stratification theory, human capital theory, and child development perspectives.
Main Results:
- Parental education, occupation, and family income significantly impact parental spending, with education being the most influential.
- Race remains a significant predictor of parental spending, even after accounting for socioeconomic status.
- Parental expectations critically shape spending priorities, particularly for child development.
Conclusions:
- Parental socioeconomic status, race, and expectations are crucial determinants of resource allocation to children.
- Parental education is the primary driver of differential spending across children.
- Parental expectations influence investment in child development and spending priorities.
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