Environmental and Parental Factors to Childhood Development

Annotated Bibliography
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Annotated Bibliography: Child Development
Cheng, Z., Mendolia, S., Paloyo, A.R., Savage, D.A., & Tani, M. (2021). Working parents, financial insecurity, and childcare: mental health in the time of COVID-19 in the UK. Review of Economics of the Household, 19, 123-144. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-020-09538-3
Cheng et al. (2021) show the impact of mental health deterioration among working parents and its association with financial insecurity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide passed policy measures to help control the spread of the disease, such as physical distancing, lockdowns, and social isolation that saw the closure of schools. Cheng et al. (2021) notice that as parents spend more time on homeschooling and childcare, increased cases of mental health issues are associated with challenges in managing competing time demands in two life domains of home and work. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), the researchers document the relationship between mental health deterioration and the challenges of homeschooling and childcare, particularly among women and low-income persons (p.123). The study involved 40,000 households, with 17,452 persons completing the post-COVID-19 survey in April 2020 and an additional 14,811 in May 2020 (Cheng et al., 2021). While the study includes a large sample, data from the first two months of the survey is used to make conclusions about the socioeconomic and behavioral domains of the respondents. The analysis is based on Wave 9 of the UKHLS ad the surveys conducted between April and May 2020. However, the study informs on the need to consider inequalities such as gender and socioeconomic factors when formulating policies.
Hernandez-Alava, M., & Popli, G. (2017). Children's development and parental input: Evidence from the UK millennium cohort study. Demography, 54, 485-511. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13524-017-0554-6
Hernandez-Alava and Popli (2017) have estimated a dynamic factor model of child development using the UK Millennium Cohort Study among children under seven years. Using the model to study both cognitive and noncognitive abilities, the authors have identified a significant effect of self-productivity in both cognitive and noncognitive development and evidence of dynamic dependence among children with varying abilities (Hernandez-Alava & Popli, 2017, p.485). The researchers note that various activities that parents perform at home with their children can significantly impact the development of children. Besides, the study has found substantial evidence of two different latent parental inputs or investment variables with different effects across the two developmental abilities. The study suffers some limitations regarding nonrandom attrition in the sample, which is common for studies that rely on longitudinal data. While the authors have identified the role of parental investment, its persistence has not been modeled. In their sample, persistence is high, which would reinforce the impact of policies and other external factors. However, the study has several policy implications, especially with the realization of the tole of parental inves...