The Research Basis for TwoGeneration Strategies
Christopher T. King
Ray Marshall Center, UT-Austin
Working Poor Families Project Policy Academy
The Joyce Foundation,
Chicago, IL
June 27, 2014
Acknowledgements
Collaborators—
• Lindsay Chase-Lansdale,
Terese Sommer, et al.,
Northwestern
• Aspen Institute’s Ascend
Program & Ascend Fellows
Funders—
• Hirokazu Yoshikawa, NYU
• George Kaiser Family
Foundation
• Jeanne Brooks-Gunn,
Columbia
• Foundation for Child
Development
• Jack Shonkoff & Celia
Gomez, Harvard
• Administration for Children
& Families, USHHS
• Steven Dow & Monica
Barczak, Community Action
Program of Tulsa Co.
• W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Two-Generation Strategies
• Wide variation in strategies, from basic parent
engagement, parents-as-first-teachers, parenting
programs, parent referrals to services, and so on. Quality
and intensity are very uneven.
• “Two-Gen 2.0” emphasizes substantive human capital
investments, i.e., programs intentionally and
simultaneously connecting:
– High-quality education and job training for parents, and
– High-quality early education for their young children
– With requisite supports and wrap-around services to
ensure their effectiveness.
Conceptual Framework*
Components
Child
Quality Early Education
(PreK-3rd Grade)
Short-term Outcomes
•
•
•
•
Early literacy & math preparation
Improved attendance
Career exposure
Social/emotional readiness for K-3rd
grade
Family Support Services
Parent
Leading-edge
Postsecondary
Education & Training
plus
Adult Ed, ESL & Wraparound Services
*Building on Chase-Lansdale et al. (April 2011).
• Understanding relationship between
own and child’s education
• Motivation to pursue postsec.
education, training & careers
• Defined E&T and career goals
• Higher rates of postsecondary
education and career training
enrollment and persistence
Framework*…
Components
Child
Quality Early Education
(PreK-3rd Grade)
Mid-term Outcomes
• Academic success in elementary
school
• Improved social adjustment in
elementary school
Family Support Services
Parent
Leading-edge
Postsecondary
Education & Training
plus
Adult Ed, ESL & Wraparound Services
*Building on Chase-Lansdale et al. (April 2011).
• Higher rates of adult basic
education (including ESL)
• PSE credit accumulation
• PSE persistence
• PSE completion
• Improved parent/child interaction
Framework*…
Components
Child
Quality Early Education
(PreK-3rd Grade)
Long-term Outcomes
• Increased academic performance
in middle and high school
• Increased rates of PSE enrollment,
persistence and completion
Family Support Services
Parent
Leading-edge
Postsecondary
Education & Training
plus
Adult Ed, ESL & Wraparound Services
*Building on Chase-Lansdale et al. (April 2011).
•
•
•
•
Increased emotional well being
Greater life stability
Career advancement
Improved employment, earnings
and family incomes
Two-Generation Pathways
Haskins et al., in Spring 2014 two-generation issue of Future
of Children, describe 6 pathways by which parents and home
setting affect child development:
1. Stress
2. Parental Education (including skills training)
3. Health
4. Income
5. Employment
6. Asset Development
Points to the need for comprehensive, multi-faceted
strategies.
Stress & Child Development
Thompson (2014), building on brain development (Shonkoff
& Phillips, 2001) and child development research, finds—
•Marital conflict, domestic violence, child abuse, depression,
poverty lead to stress, sometimes extraordinary and
unavoidable (“chronic” or “toxic”) stress.
•Biological effects of stress undermine children’s ability to
concentrate, remember, control and focus their thinking.
•Developmental plasticity can help … or hurt.
•Parent/caregiver support can offset, buffer stress effects.
•Better preventive and ameliorative interventions can improve
child/parent/caregiver relations via “integrated biologicalbehavioral approaches.”
Parental Education
Kaushal’s (2014) review finds—
•“Better educated parents have better educated kids.”
•Increased parent education has positive causal effects on
children’s test scores, health, behavior, and development,
as well as on mothers’ own behavior (e.g., teen
childbearing, substance abuse) as it affects their children.
•Conventional measures of returns to parental education
(e.g., income, productivity) understate real returns.
•US spends more on education as % of GDP than other
OECD nations, but disproportionately on richer children,
thus perpetuating inequality. NOTE: US ranks almost last in
spending on labor market/training programs,
(King & Heinrich, 2011)!
Family Health
Glied & Oellerich’s (2014) review finds—
•“Healthier parents have healthier children,” as result of
genetics, as well as environment and behavior.
•Key issues include access, insurance and benefits.
•Problematic that physicians typically treat parents or
children, not the family as a whole.
•Health components (e.g., “health home”, nutritional
education) not very common in today’s 2-gen programs.
Family Income
Duncan et al. (2014) find—
•Poverty harms child development per 3 theories: family &
environmental stress; family resources & investment; and
cultural practices.
•Causal effects of low income are “moderate”, but timing is
key: poverty in early childhood has strongest adverse
impacts.
•Note MDRC research on impacts of income supplements
in US and Canada.
•Cash and in-kind income supplements likely have positive
effects on child development.
Parental Employment
Heinrich’s (2014) review finds—
•Mixed effects of employment on children, independent of
effects of income alone:
Plus: increased income/resources, better role modeling
Minus: less parenting time, greater stress
•NOTE: children whose parents have unstable, low-wage,
low-quality jobs without autonomy or benefits are at much
greater risk of adverse effects.
•Note Yoshikawa et al. (2006) qualitative research on New
Hope Project families in Milwaukee.
Family Assets
Grinstein-Weiss et al. (2014) find—
•While poverty-child development links are well
documented and researched, connections between parent
savings, wealth, and child well-being are not yet as clear.
•Low- and moderate-income parents save, if their funds
matched by 3rd parties.
•Greater assets lead to increased parent education and
increased college-going for kids.
•More research needed. Experiments, new initiatives are
ongoing (e.g., CFED, Colorado DHS).
Promise of 2-Gen 2.0
Chase-Lansdale & Brooks-Gunn (2014) review 2-Gen 1.0
and new 2-Gen 2.0 strategies. Major theories:
•Continuity & Change: “Early learning begets later learning,
skills beget skills.”
•Ecological, “proximal environment”: Import of “close-in”
environments during kids’ early years, school and home.
•Risk & Reslience: Kids can bounce back, thrive in face of
adversity with internal and environmental “protective
factors”. Interventions must be multi-level, tailored, focused
on multiple competence domains, lasting.
•Human Capital: education and skills investments lead to
greater productivity, jobs, earnings over time.
Promise of 2-Gen 2.0 …
2-Gen 1.0 (1980s, 1990s) produced modest effects but
mainly added parenting, other low-intensity services to ECE
or served mainly welfare mothers adding child care.
2-Gen 2.0 (late 2000s), starting with Tulsa’s Career
Advance®, build on much improved workforce and
postsecondary approaches. Substantively very different:
•Simultaneous human capital investment for wide range of
low-income parents and children in same program.
•Intensive postsecondary education and sectoral training
with career pathways, stackable credentials.
•Workforce intermediaries with employer engagement.
•High-quality ECE centers.
Rigorous Sector Evaluations
• Experimental evaluation of Per Scholas (NYC); Jewish
Vocational Services (Boston); & Wisconsin Regional
Training Partnership (Milwaukee) (Maguire et al., 2010).
• Quasi-experimental Capital IDEA (Austin) evaluation &
ROI analysis (Smith et al., 2012; Smith & King, 2011).
• Experimental evaluation of Comprehensive Employment
Training (CET) Replication, a sectoral, career pathway
youth program (Miller et al., 2005).
• Experimental evaluation of Year Up, career pathway,
sectoral, bridge program for youth (Roder & Elliott, 2011 &
2014).
• Quasi-experimental I-BEST ‘bridge’ program evaluation
(Zeidenberg et al., 2010).
Program Participation Effects
Program effects significant and quite large:
• Participation in E&T services was 32% points higher for
participants in sectoral programs relative to controls.
• CET youth received 145 more hours of training and earned
credentials at rate 21% points above controls.
• Year Up participants were 13% points less likely than
controls to have attended college in 4 years after random
assignment.
• I-BEST participants experienced a 17% point increase in
services, a 10% point increase in college credits, and a
7.5% point increase in occupational certifications 3 years
after enrollment. No significant effects on AA/AS degrees.
Labor Market Impacts
Meaningful, significant, lasting impacts on participant
employment, earnings and associated ROI.
Employment
•
With exception of Year Up and I-BEST, participation
associated with statistically significant increases in
employment from two to 7.5 years post-program.
•
Even in programs that did not boost overall employment
rates (e.g., Year Up), participation led to increased
employment in the targeted sectors (healthcare, IT),
typically in much better jobs.
Labor Market Impacts …
Earnings. Impacts of 12-30% points 2 to 7.5 years post
enrollment.
•WTRP participants earned 24% more than controls over 2
years, largely from working more hours and earning higher
wages; more likely to work in jobs paying $11, $13/hr than
controls. Similar results for JVS, Per Scholas.
•Capital IDEA participation led to 12-13% point earnings
increases, increased (monetary) UI eligibility by 11-12%
points nearly 8 years post. Low-income workers able to
become eligible for ‘first-tier’ safety net.
•Year Up participant earnings exceeded controls by 32%
points 3years post, largely from working full-time rather than
part-time jobs, jobs paying higher wages.
Labor Market Impacts …
Source: Smith & King, 2011.
Associated ROI Effects
Source: Smith & King, 2011.
Qualitative Evidence
• Too soon to capture measurable impacts from 2gen 2.0 efforts. Early outcomes just emerging
from Tulsa’s CareerAdvance®.
• Partner (e.g., Tulsa Community College, Union
Public Schools), CAP, CareerAdvance® and
employer interviews are very encouraging.
• Participant focus groups and interviews since
2010 tell us the program and its components are
largely on the right track. A few examples …
Peers, Coaches & Staff Support
“We constantly have the support not only from our
classmates but also from our teachers and our
coach. You know, and when I was in college before,
it was just me against the world basically you know.
So if I dropped out, nobody cared. It was just, I was
only just disappointing myself. Now if anybody is
missing too much class we’d call them and are like,
you know ‘Where are you at? Come to class.’”
Role Modeling
“I’m the first person to even go to school. So it feels
good to me to just know that I’m gonna make a
better, like pave a better path for my son. The
chances of him going to school if I complete school
are so much higher. And that’s you know, not only
will I create a better life for him as a child, but it’ll
give him some encouragement and motivation, and I
can be a better role model for him to go to school
when he’s older. So it makes me feel a lot better I
think.”
State Policy Implications
Per King et al. (2013), states should:
•Target families rather than just adults or children
for services
•Adopt and foster proven sectoral and career
pathway strategies for adults
•Provide funding for workforce intermediaries to
better engage employers and providers in
postsecondary services
•Adopt and support contextualized ‘bridge’ models
for adult education and ESL services
State Policy Implications …
• Ensure that colleges, esp. 2-year, offer cohort
and peer supports, career navigators/coaches to
ensure persistence and credential completion
• Take advantage of opportunities to provide quality
early childhood education in lieu of typical
childcare services for parents served in workforce
and education programs
• Pursue asset building strategies to increase
parents’ capacity to support their children while in
workforce and education programs and beyond
Concluding Observations
Passive, market-based models simply will not help families
become economically self-sufficient or break the cycle of
inter-generational poverty.
Some state policy and program frameworks — and
associated local institutions — are much better structured
to help families get the services they need to succeed.
States not so well structured can take action to improve
their capacity for action, without federal legislation.
Pending federal legislation (e.g., the Workforce Innovation
Opportunity Act) may be more supportive of 2-generation
strategies and their evidence-based components.
Greater investment is needed at all levels.
For More Information
Christopher T. King, Director
Ray Marshall Center
LBJ School of Public Affairs
The University of Texas at Austin
512.471.2186
ctking@raymarshallcenter.org
www.raymarshallcenter.org