Wie hängen familiale Veränderungen und das mütterliche Wohlbefinden mit der frühkindlichen Entwicklung zusammen?

Abstract

Research in educational economics has shown that parental quality explains a large proportion of the variance in early childhood development. This paper uses the representative SOEP data to study the connection between early childhood development and objective as well as subjective indicators reflecting the quality of the parental environment. As objective indicators for the quality of the family environment, we use changes in the family structure and in the mother’s employment status, and as subjective indicators the mother’s life satisfaction and mental health. The results show lower scale values for the adaptive behavior of children whose mothers were not employed continuously after giving birth. Children of mothers who changed partners several times display more problematic socio-emotional behavior. A mother’s subjective wellbeing is positively correlated with both her children’s adaptive behavior (especially language skills) and their socio-emotional behavior. Our results therefore provide important evidence that early childhood interventions should always address not just the quality of the institutional framework, but crucially also the quality of the family environment.