America is the land of opportunity. It was built on the notion that anyone, with hard work and talent, can succeed, regardless of race, class, or sex, and for decades, that opportunity has come alive for many. Generations have embraced the opportunities and built a life that saw their children do better than they had done. Ask anyone, even today amid a grinding recession, and they still fervently believe that with a little hard work, anyone can succeed.
Yet such opportunity has been steadily shrinking for many. As a once young economy matures, upward mobility inevitably slows. Disparities harden. The United States today has less upward mobility than many European countries. The gap between the wealthiest and the poorest grows ever wider, as wealthy parents pay for better education, better health care, better neighborhoods, and even better nutrition than those farther down the economic ladder. And with that widening disparity, opportunities contract for growing numbers of children, particularly those most vulnerable.
As I wrote yesterday, the child poverty rate, at 21%, is hardening inequality. Restoring equal opportunity for children must be the nation’s goal if we are to compete successfully on a global field. As the disparities in wealth and opportunity widen, policies and programs must fill the gap and level the playing field, giving everyone a truly equal shot at the good life.
The policies and programs that help rebuild a true meritocracy must touch all aspects of a child’s life because life’s opportunities spring from a web of influences, from income to education, to health, to families and communities.
Income is one of the most decisive shapers of opportunity in America. A child born into a family struggling in poverty begins life much farther behind the starting line.
Children who grow up in poverty are less likely to do well in school, largely because their families lack the resources to invest in children’s cognitive development—the foundation of education success. These investments range from early care and education programs to music and art lessons. In later years, these investments extend to afterschool programs, extracurricular activities, and, ultimately, higher education. A recent study finds that poorest families spend almost one-third of what wealthier families spend on enrichment items for their children. As incomes decline amid the recession, this link between income and early investment becomes an ever greater cause for concern.
However, children’s futures do not always turn on money. Good parenting trumps higher income. Increasingly today, however, parents are under stress. When time is stretched thin, when money is tight, when pressures build, good parenting is more difficult. This is particularly true for single parents, who juggle work and childrearing without the help of a spouse. But it is also true for middle-class parents. Parents today commute longer, parental leave benefits are few and far between, and many families face the strain of unstable jobs that pay less and expect more—if they have a job at all. Job loss can lead to more depression and anxiety among parents, which in turn can affect child adjustment and school achievement.
High levels of stress and isolation can also lead to damaging physical abuse or neglect. Children whose parents are facing economic or social stress, who are isolated with few friends or neighbors to call on, who are young or single are more often victims of child abuse and neglect, often as infants, which can cause irreparable physical and emotional harm. Sadly, the rate of child abuse and neglect has been rising during the past several years. Traumatic stress during childhood has a lasting effect on the regions of the brain responsible for emotion regulation, among other harms. Abuse and neglect has also been shown to produce higher incidence of depression, substance abuse, and criminal activity among adults.
Physical and mental health also affects opportunities. A child whose mother abused drugs or alcohol during pregnancy or failed to get vital prenatal care risks important developmental delays. The developing brain is in various “sensitive stages” during pregnancy and the first few years of life. If nutrition is lacking, or substance abuse is ongoing, or other stresses are present, the brain can be indelibly scarred. Once certain circuits in the brain are mature, it is much more difficult to modify them with experience.
Even where a child lives—his or her neighborhood or community—can influence opportunities. Exposure to chronic stress in dangerous neighborhoods is one explanation for the pronounced health disparities by income. Neighborhoods are where schools are located, and schools in low-income neighborhoods tend to underperform those in higher-income neighborhoods, for a host of interrelated reasons, leaving children with fewer tools to effectively compete.
Creating Opportunities, Maximizing Potential
These hurdles to opportunity—so complicated and intertwined—seem at times insurmountable. Yet they are not insurmountable. Biology is not destiny, and environment—especially the family environment—can be changed. Indeed, a recent study finds that family characteristics explain much of the difference in children’s educational outcomes, and changes to parenting practices and home environment can make a real difference. In-home visiting, where a nurse or other professional visits new mothers in vulnerable situations and helps out, has a proven track record in bolstering parenting skills. The Highscope Perry Preschool Project included just 1.5 hours of weekly home visits yet its impacts on children were long-lasting.
Even the supposedly hardwired brain isn’t impervious to the right stimulus. Many functions of the brain, for example, love nothing more than to learn and adapt. Indeed, the areas of the brain that handle high-level cognitive and emotional functions have a long developmental trajectory—in some instances they are not fully formed until the early twenties. Therefore, even if the child gets off to a poor start, exposure to positive experiences can in some instances help to counterbalance the negative.
Likewise, the effects of poverty are not insurmountable. Evidence shows that with additional income, families increase their spending on learning-related items and activities. For instance, in the New Hope antipoverty experiment, which supplemented family income with a small stipend similar to the EITC, families used the money to enroll children in child care, afterschool activities, and other enrichment programs.
Other research finds that find that a $1,000 increase in family income leads to improved math and reading test scores. Given these findings, two programs should receive continued support. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) both supplement income and help families make ends meet and alleviate the strain of poverty.
Even without raising income, we can alter a child’s path by helping him or her build the skills needed to take advantage of future opportunities. Improving child nutrition, as WIC and other services do, can help children build a foundation for healthy development. Programs that encourage prenatal care and breastfeeding also contribute to healthy development in those critical months and early years.
One of the most important steps to equalize opportunity is to expand quality preschool and afterschool programs. Head Start, Early Head Start, and similar high-quality early childhood programs lead to significant leaps in IQ and cognitive ability among children. Even though the IQ advances level off later, other benefits remain. Children in the Highscope Perry Preschool Project, for example, earned higher test scores at age 10 even thought their IQ scores were not any higher on average. They did better because the program had also focused on those equally important the socio-emotional skills such as perseverance, self-control, motivation, self-esteem, among others. Yet Despite the proven track records of quality preschool and quality early child care on children’s opportunities, high-quality child care is also financially out of reach for too many. A poor single mother would have to spend 45% of her income for full-time child care at a licensed child care center.
These and many other supports have been shown to fill the gap between what the child inherits and what opportunities await. So much happens early in life to, if not cement, then shape the course of our lives that it is short-sighted not to invest during this critical stage when the return will be great. The dividends to both children and society, in other words, accrue for a lifetime.
Not everyone starts from the same gate. Some have farther to run just to cross the starting line. But all children should have the opportunity to run the race. And with continued support, we can ensure that happens.
Here’s my sources for the above facts:
Jane Waldfogel et al., “Fragile Families and Child Well-Being,” The Future of Children, 20(2)(2010): 87-112.
The short-term job loss effects are from Ann Huff Stevens and Jessamyn Schaller, “Short-Run Effects of Parental Job Loss on Children’s Academic Achievement.” (Davis, CA: University of California, Davis, 2009).
Christopher Boccanfuso et al., “Ten Ways to Promote Educational Achievement and Attainment Beyond the Classroom.” Research to Results Brief 2010-16. New York: Child Trends, July 2010.
