Parenting Scarcity and Violence

Parenting, Scarcity, and Violence

• ; Arturo Harker Roa
• ; Andrés Moya

• Facultad de Economía, Universidad de los Andes

Empirical strategy

  How to measure parenting, scarcity, and violence:

  Low exposition Middle exposition High exposition Pr( Negl ig enc e )

  0.05 0,02 0,04 0,06 0,08

  Feeling scarcity changes attention allocation and reduces cognitive capacity. Being exposed to violence produces stress, which has a causal effect over self-control, patience, motivation, aspirations, and expectations .

Abstract

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  Econometric strategy

  Parenting is a main predictor of cognitive and social-emotional development in early childhood.

  Parental negligence and violence

  Nonetheless, there is a parenting gap between low and high income households. Based on recent literature from psychology and behavioral economics, we discuss a theoretical framework to understand these differences. Particularly, we identify that perceiving scarcity or being exposed to adversities may reduce parents’ cognitive resources, thus leaving less capacity to exert high quality parenting practices. Using cross-sectional data from a household survey, and administrative information about crime and violence in Colombia, we identify that feeling scarcity and being exposed to violence correlate with a probability of child neglect 6 to 8 percentage points higher. In the same fashion, receiving information about parenting correlates with a probability of parental negligence 5 percentage points lower.

  0.13

  0.08 Robust standard errors in parentheses. ***p<0.01, **p<0.05, *p<0.1

  Escuela de Gobierno, Universidad de los Andes,

  Jorge Cuartas Ricaurte

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• Parenting: ENCV 2013 - Frequency of activities between parents and children (e.g., read, play, sing). Parental negligence: not exerting any activity with children.
• Scarcity: ENCV 2013 – is household income (i) enough, (ii) less than enough, or (iii) not enough to cover the household expenses.
• Violence: Min. Defensa - homicides rate per 100.000 inhabitants in the municipality.

  0,1 0,12 0,14 0,16 0,18

• We estimate probit models, controlling for household income, parents' education, information about parenting practices, and other individual, household, and municipal characteristics.
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Motivation

Results

Discussion

• Our results suggest that feeling scarcity and
• There is a correlation between income and child neglect (Column 1), however, it is driven by omitted variables.
• Receiving information about parenting correlates with a lower probability of parental negligence.
• Scarcity (i.e., the feeling of having less than what is needed) correlates with a probability of parental negligence 6 percentage points higher (Column 2, Figure 1). Including such variable detracts significance to income coefficient.
• Being exposed to violence (homicides in the municipality) correlates with a probability of parental negligence 8 percentage points higher (Column 3, Figure 2).
• These findings highlight the importance of understanding and taking into account, for public policy, the underlying principles behind self-defeating behaviors that may produce intergenerational poverty traps.
• Nevertheless, our results are not a causal effect, and it is possible to argue that they are hiding other things (for instance, omitted variables). However, we run robustness checks that allowed us to believe we are finding an effect of scarcity and violence on parental negligence.

Conclusions

  Probit (1) (2) (3) Income per capita (log)

  Information

  Jorge Cuartas Ricaurte Universidad de los Andes Email: ja.cuartas10@uniandes.edu.co Website: decisionesuniandes.weebly.com Phone: (+57) 301 336 8590 Contact _{1. Heckman, J. (2006). Skill formation and the economics of investing in disadvantage children. Science, 312, 1900-1902.}

  2. Heckman, J., Stixrud, J., & Urzua, S. (2006). The effects of cognitive and noncognitive abilities on labor market outcomes and social behavior. _{Journal of Labor Economics, 24 (3), 411-482. 3. Lieberman, A., & Van Horn, P. (2011). Psychotherapy with infants and young children: repairing the effects of stress and trauma on early} attachment . New York: The Guilford Press. _{4. Reeves, R., & Howard, K. (2013). The parenting gap. Center of Children and Families of Brookings . 5. Lewis, O. (1969). Culture of poverty. In D. Motnihad (Ed.), On understanding poverty: prspectives from the social sciences (pp. 187-220). New York:} Basic Books. _{6. Shah, A. K., Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2012). Some consequences of having too little. Science, 338, 682-685; Haushofer, J., & Fehr, E. (2014). On the psychology of poverty. Science, 344, 862-867.}

  7. DANE (2015); Registro Único de Víctimas (2015).

  0.07

  0.11

  Table 1 summarizes our main results:

  Parental negligence and scarcity Figure 2.

  Figure 1.

  Usually, poor parenting practices are found in poor households. It is not because of systematic differences between the poor and non-poor. It is due to the psychological consequences of living in disadvantage environments and being exposed to adversities.

  being exposed to violence increases the chances of parental negligence in Colombia.

  0.093* (0.054) Controls

  Although this is encouraging, not all parents exert the same rearing quality. Particularly, recent evidence suggests low-income parents are not giving their children as much attention, support and encouragement as they need ⁴ . Traditionally, it has been assumed that such behaviors are explained by a culture of poverty or by systematic differences between the poor and non-poor ⁵ . However Psychology and behavioral economics offer a new explanation: mental resources (e.g., self-control, motivation, patience) are scarce, and the same adversities that impact children may reduce parents resources, leaving less capacity to exert high quality parenting practices ⁶ .

• Usually, poor parenting practices are found in the poorest households. However, it is not because of a culture of poverty or systematic differences in preferences, but because of the psychological consequences of being exposed to adversities and stress.
• This topic is particularly relevant to Colombia’s context, where 60% of early childhood live in poverty, 23% in extreme

• 0.098*** (0.018) 0.046 (0.048) 0.051 (0.035)
• Public policy needs to take into account the way psychological distress may affect poverty dynamics. Particularly, how scarcity and being exposed to violence impact not just children’s development but also their main source of protection: their parents.
• There are some efforts on that direction. For instance, in Universidad de los Andes we are working on a project called Semillas de
• 0.501*** (0.180)
• 0.479*** (0.175) Some scarcity

  Scarcity 0.437** (0.226)

  0.448* (0.271) Homicides (log)

  No Yes Yes Observations 4,081 2,214 2,003 0,02 0,04 0,06 0,08

  Parental negligence likelihood

  Early childhood is a critical stage of development, where cognitive and socioemotional skills develop ¹ . Kids born in disadvantage environments, who experienced adversities (e.g., being exposed to poverty or violence), are at much greater risk of being unskilled, having lower income, worst educational and professional performance, and a series of social and emotional problems through their life ² . Nonetheless, there is a natural antidote against adverse childhood experiences: parenting ³ .

  Apego , aimed at alleviating displaced mothers’ stress and fostering parental skills ⁸ .

  poverty, and 10% are victims of civil conflict ⁷ .

  0,1 0,12 0,14

  No scarcity Some scarcity Scarcity Pr( Ne glig ence )

  0.05 Table 1.

  0.249 0.214 0.201 (0.250)