How Cultural Factors Shape Economic Outcomes
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How Cultural Factors Shape Economic Outcomes VOLUME 30 NUMBER 1 SPRING 2020 3 How Cultural Factors Shape Economic Outcomes: Introducing the Issue 9 Religious Institutions and Economic Wellbeing 29 Parenting Practices and Socioeconomic Gaps in Childhood Outcomes 55 The Disparate Effects of Family Structure 83 Role Models, Mentors, and Media Influences 107 Peer and Family Effects in Work and Program Participation 127 Social Capital, Networks, and Economic Wellbeing 153 The Double-Edged Consequences of Beliefs about Opportunity and Economic Mobility 127 How Discrimination and Bias Shape Outcomes A COLLABORATION OF THE WOODROW WILSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY AND THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION The Future of Children promotes effective policies and programs for children by providing timely, objective information based on the best available research. Senior Editorial Staff Journal Staff Editor-in-Chief Associate Editor Sara McLanahan Kris McDonald Princeton University Princeton University Director, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, and William S. Tod Managing Editor Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs Jon Wallace Princeton University Senior Editors Janet M. Currie Outreach Coordinator Princeton University Morgan Welch Director, Center for Health and Wellbeing; Brookings Institution Chair, Department of Economics; and Henry Putnam Professor of Economics Communications Coordinator and Public Affairs Regina Leidy Princeton University Ron Haskins Brookings Institution Administrator Senior Fellow, Cabot Family Chair, and Tracy Merone Co-Director, Center on Children and Families Princeton University Melissa Kearney University of Maryland Professor, Department of Economics Cecilia Elena Rouse Princeton University Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Katzman-Ernst Professor in the Economics of Education, and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs Isabel Sawhill Brookings Institution Senior Fellow The Future of Children would like to thank the Smith Richardson Foundation and Cynthia King Vance for their generous support. ISSN: 1054-8289 ISBN: 978-0-9814705-0-4 VOLUME 30 NUMBER 1 SPRING 2020 How Cultural Factors Shape Economic Outcomes 3 How Cultural Factors Shape Economic Outcomes: Introducing the Issue by Melissa S. Kearney and Ron Haskins 9 Religious Institutions and Economic Wellbeing Daniel Hungerman 29 Parenting Practices and Socioeconomic Gaps in Childhood Outcomes by Ariel Kalil and Rebecca Ryan 55 The Disparate Effects of Family Structure by Melanie Wasserman 83 Role Models, Mentors, and Media Influences by Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip B. Levine 107 Peer and Family Effects in Work and Program Participation by Gordon B. Dahl 127 Social Capital, Networks, and Economic Wellbeing by Judith K. Hellerstein and David Neumark 153 The Double-Edged Consequences of Beliefs about Opportunity and Economic Mobility by Mesmin Destin 165 How Discrimination and Bias Shape Outcomes by Kevin Lang and Ariella Kahn-Lang Spitzer www.futureofchildren.org How Cultural Factors Shape Economic Outcomes: Introducing the Issue How Cultural Factors Shape Economic Outcomes: Introducing the Issue Melissa S. Kearney and Ron Haskins hildren’s economic and social children’s economic outcomes. When we outcomes, both during their use the word culture here, we don’t purport childhood and in their adult to work either within or outside a precise years, largely depend on the definition of culture that comes from any circumstances into which they particular academic body of thought. Rather, Care born and raised. Such circumstances are we consider particular elements of the social the product of children’s families, schools, institutions, customs, and attitudes in US and neighborhoods; the peers and adults society that a layperson might reasonably with whom they spend time; the media consider to be culture. images that shape their perceptions of themselves and their place in the world; and The eight articles we’ve assembled here other factors—both internal and external to were written by highly regarded economists the individual child. Many would say that and psychologists. Each article considers culture plays a large role in shaping a child’s a specific societal factor that research has life experiences and outcomes. But culture is shown to be important to economic and hard to define and quantify, and controversial social outcomes: religious institutions; to talk about, especially as an ill-defined parenting practices; family structure; role concept. Furthermore, the question of models, mentors and media influences; what—if anything—policy makers and peer and family effects; social capital and practitioners can do about culture is hard to networks; beliefs about opportunity and grapple with, unlike more readily measured mobility; and discrimination. All the authors and studied concepts like income or have written through the lens of objectivity, educational attainment. with a deep and expansive knowledge of the relevant research. This issue of the Future of Children aims to identify and measure elements of culture Most people would probably place some of that predict children’s economic and social the topics covered here at the top of their list outcomes, and to present the best evidence of what they consider cultural elements— to date about how these factors shape for example, the role of religion or family Melissa S. Kearney is the Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland. She is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Ron Haskins is a senior fellow, Cabot Family Chair in Economic Studies, and co-director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution. VOL. 30 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2020 3 Melissa S. Kearney and Ron Haskins structure. But other topics may seem less which makes use of confidential access to obviously “cultural.” For instance, economists millions of US tax records—has provided often talk about labor market networks a rich description of social mobility across without explicitly referring to networks localities in the United States.2 This data- as part of a society’s culture. Nor do most driven work reveals vast differences across economic considerations of discrimination the country in rates of upward mobility for explicitly consider that practice as a cultural children from low-income homes. Strikingly, construct. As co-editors, we view each article the research shows that many of the factors in this issue as exploring a critical element that predict upward mobility rates from of the US cultural context shaping children’s place to place have more to do with cultural lives, though the individual authors don’t elements than with policy per se. Family necessarily define or discuss the factors structure, social capital, and religiosity, they’re writing about explicitly in terms of for example, are more highly correlated culture. with social mobility than are such factors as college tuition and tax progressivity. Cultural Factors and Social Furthermore, the presence of black fathers Mobility in a neighborhood and a measure of racial animus are the two strongest predictors of Our nation is in the grip of widening mobility rates for black boys. This doesn’t inequality and social fragmentation. The past discount the importance of policy but rather four decades have seen massive increases in makes the point that cultural factors are also income for those at the top of the income critically important. distribution but only small to modest increases for those near the bottom. People Articles 1–3: Religious Institutions, who lack high levels of skills and education Parenting, and Family Structure have seen their wages stagnate or fall and their economic insecurity rise. It’s harder In the first article in this issue, Daniel today for children to achieve higher levels Hungerman, an economist at the University of income than their parents had, which Notre Dame, reviews the roles that religious suggests that the fabled American Dream institutions play in people’s lives and is under threat.1 Many of us worry that the considers how engagement with religious promise of opportunity and upward mobility institutions shapes people’s economic is eroding. The issue of social mobility is wellbeing. Estimates suggest that the United front and center in academic research and States is home to over 380,000 religious domestic policy discussions. congregations. Many of these provide help to people in their communities, not just Rates of social mobility vary widely from to their own members, the most common place to place, and many key correlates of types of social services being assistance upward mobility have to do with the elements with food, housing, and clothing. Religious of a place’s culture. Groundbreaking research congregations play a large role in education from the Opportunity Insights project—a as well, and in community organizing. social science research lab at Harvard University, led by economists Raj Chetty, Hungerman also discusses the consequences John Friedman, and Nathaniel Hendren, of religious participation, focusing on what 4 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN How Cultural Factors Shape Economic Outcomes: Introducing the Issue rigorous evidence suggests about the causal be financial strain and family stress, both of role that engagement with religion has on which can impede parents’ emotional and people’s outcomes. For instance, a large cognitive functioning