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Can the welfare state replace parents? Children's cognition in the United States and Great Britain

Toby L Parcel1, Lori Ann Campbell2

  • 1Department of Sociology and Anthropology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, United States.

Social Science Research
|April 3, 2017
PubMed

Insights

Parental investments significantly impact child cognitive development, including verbal and math skills, across the United States and Great Britain. Societal welfare systems do not fully offset these crucial family influences.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Comparative Education
  • Sociology of the Family

Background:

  • Understanding cross-cultural influences on child cognitive development is crucial.
  • Previous research highlights the importance of family environment on academic achievement.
  • Cross-national comparisons can reveal universal and context-specific factors in child development.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare family and parental effects on child verbal and mathematics achievement in the US and Great Britain.
  • To identify common and differing factors influencing cognitive skills across these two nations.
  • To examine the role of societal welfare systems in mediating parental investment effects.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized data from the 1994 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) Child-Mother Data Set (US).
  • Analyzed data from the National Child Development Study (British Child) (Great Britain).
  • Employed multivariate analyses on a sample of 3,438 US children and 1,429 British children aged 5-13.

Main Results:

  • Family investment processes influencing child cognition appear similar across the US and Great Britain.
  • Key factors include low birth weight, child health, maternal cognition, family size, and home environment.
  • Parental investments demonstrated equal importance in both societies.

Conclusions:

  • Parental investments are a critical, universally significant factor in child cognitive development.
  • The robust welfare state in Great Britain does not significantly compensate for parental investments.
  • Welfare provisions may play a more critical role when parental resources are limited or unavailable.

Keywords:
Child cognitionFamily effectsGreat BritainUnited StatesWelfare state

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