Two-Generation Early Intervention Programs as Vehicles for Enhancing Parental Human Capital and Economic Self-Sufficiency

Abstract

Extant research on early intervention programs for economically disadvantaged families with very young children predominantly focuses on the benefits that accrue to the children. Yet, these “two-generation” interventions may also influence parents, as most programs provide services to families as well as children. In a set of three studies, this dissertation reviews the efficacy of two-generation early interventions, focusing specifically on dimensions of parental socioeconomic status. In the first paper, my coauthor and I examine the impacts of the Head Start program on parental earnings. We find that the program increases short-term earnings in a younger cohort, with larger average effects also for single parents and those who are initially employed or in school. Variation in site-specific earnings effects grows over time such that it reaches statistical significance four years after random assignment, although variation in family characteristics are better predictors of impact heterogeneity than variation in what sites report they do or provide. Paper 2 builds directly on these findings and their limitations by asking which intervention components actually utilized by families explain early intervention program impacts on parental socioeconomic outcomes. Using recent instrumental variable statistical methods in the 17-site Early Head Start Research Evaluation, the study’s key finding is that parents’ receipt of case management appears to be the most important explanation for cross-site variation in these effects; there is not causal evidence of effects due to subsidized center-based child care as a parental work or education support. Paper 3 applies the same methodology in the same data to explore whether the same processes through which early intervention programs directly influence parental socioeconomic status indirectly alter children’s cognitive and/or social-emotional competencies. The study’s results are not consistent with the idea that center-based child care explains as much variation in children’s earliest outcomes as previous scholars may have believed. Rather, the key finding is that services provided to low-income parents play an important causal role in influencing their children when they are very young. The implications of each study’s findings are discussed with the intention of informing research, policy, and practice.