Writing in the NY Times Economix blog on May 25, economist Nancy Folbre wrote an entry "Hard Times for the Kids" based on a newly released report (pdf) from the Child and Youth Well-Being Index Project at Duke University:
The project regularly publishes a Child Well-Being Index (C.W.I.) - a kind of check-up list for children's social health. Family economic well-being is measured by a composite of the poverty rate, median annual income, parental employment and health insurance coverage for children.
The complete C.W.I. includes measures from six other domains in addition to family economic well-being: health, safety and behavior, education, community connectedness, social relationships, and emotional and spiritual well-being. The domains are equally weighted and their values compared to levels in the base year of 1975.
While the CWI is slightly higher than it was in 1975, those gains could well be wiped out in the next few years of recession.
The CWI is generically similar to the Human Development Index I wrote about yesterday, in that both are multi-factor measures of human well-being, but the HDI is relatively closely tied to a single economics measure, and only combines factors from three different domains, compared to the broader diversity described above (a complete list of the basic measures used can be found on the flip.) As a result, the CWI shows a marked decline during the early Reagan era which marks the lasting impact of the double-dip recession of 1980/82, and widespread deindustrialization the resulted--impacts that military-Keynsian "Reagan boom" papered over in terms of GDP growth, but that were deeply felt in millions of childrens lives:
This second chart more fully shows how the trajectory of different domains varied widely over this period, a clear indication that money alone cannot solve all problems, and the public policies matter deeply:
The report's projections are based on the assumption that there will not be a series of cascading effects, such as occurred in the early Reagan era. If this turns out to be wrong, things could get very bleak. As the report explains about that period:
A confluence of several sources of societal changes occurred in the early 1980s and accounts for the fact that the 1981-1982 economic recession was the leading event in a long recession/decline in child and youth wellbeing that - as shown in Figure 1 - lasted into the early-1990s. In brief, the economic recession of the early 1980s occurred at the same time as other major economic and demographic changes.
This included economic restructuring - the decline of the "rust belt" heavy industrial sectors of the economy to be replaced by the beginnings of the e-economy - and the demographic succession of the World War II generation of parents by their Baby Boomer children as parents, with all of the changes in family structures (e.g., more single-parenting) and childcare that they wrought. If the current economic downturn again coincides with similar economic, demographic, and social changes, then the anticipated impacts described above could again cascade into a prolonged downturn/long recession in child and youth well-being.
With that caveat in mind, here's an excerpt of the overview:
The Special Report shows that the impact of the current recession on children will be dramatic.
While data on most of the Key Indicators in the CWI for 2008 will not be available for two to three years, early indications are that the CWI began to decline during the past year and will continue to have negative impacts. Our projections show that virtually all the progress made in family economic well-being since 1975 will be wiped out.
The Impact on Family Economic Well-Being
As in past recessions of the early 80s, 90s and 2001-2002, it is likely that today's macroeconomic problems will impact a number of indicators of Family Economic Well-Being for families with children and adolescents.
The percentage of children in poverty is expected to peak at 21 percent in 2010, comparable to that of previous economic recessions.
More than a quarter (27 percent) or 8 million children will have at least one parent not working full-time year-round in 2010.
For all families, median annual family income (in constant 2007 dollars) is expected to decline from $59,200 in 2007, to about $55,700 in 2010. For single female-headed households, median annual family income is expected to decline from $24,950 in 2007, to $23,000 in 2010. The steepest drop, however, will be among single male-headed
households where median annual family income is expected to decline from $38,100 in 2007 to $33,300 in 2010.
The Impact on Other CWI Domains
The significant decrease in the family economic well-being domain is projected to cause negative ripple effects across the other domains which the CWI measures. Because the projections for these domains reflect indirect impacts drawn from time series forecasting of data from the CWI databank and from an analysis of past recessions, they are less quantifiable, and, therefore, stated qualitatively in the report.
While the overall impact of the recession on children's well-being is expected to resemble similar impacts from recessions past, a few trends make this economic downturn unique. Among
them:
Social relationships domain: The rate of residential mobility for children normally decreases during a recession. Due to the greater severity of the housing crisis accompanying the current economic recession, however, this decline in residential mobility will be counterbalanced by the increased mobility of low-income families that lose their housing and either move or become homeless. For those children, there will be substantial negative impacts on peer and other neighborhood social relationships.
Health domain: Children's overall health is expected to decline due to obesity. Though obesity has been on the rise for several years, it is now likely to spike as the recession drives parents to rely more on low-cost fast food. While this obesity increase is expected to bring down the health domain, however, there is some positive news. The total number of children with health insurance is expected to remain at just under 90 percent in 2010, due to the fact that government health insurance policies will provide a public safety net for children who are likely to lose private coverage.
Other projected impacts across the domains include:
Community connectedness domain: The connection that children have to their surrounding communities is likely to be negatively impacted by declines in Pre-Kindergarten participation.
Safety/behavioral domain: Children's safety and behavior is expected to fare worse due to higher rates of violent crime where youth are both victims and perpetrators. This is based on historic recessionary trends of budget cuts for policing and juvenile crime
prevention.
Finally, the focus of the CWI and its Key Indicators is on national averages across the U.S. and across the population of all children and youths. However, it must be emphasized that there will be a diversity of impacts of the current economic downturn - geographically across the nation and across racial/ethnic subpopulations and socioeconomic groups. Low-income African American and Latino children are generally more susceptible to the consequences of economic fluctuations. When the economy is doing well, their well-being gains are more dramatic; when the economy slumps, they are harder hit than their white counterparts because more children of color live in poverty to begin with.
While it's encouraging that we have a much clearer picture of the kinds of factors that impact children's well-being, it's discouraging that we are so ill-prepared to do much to prevent the foreseeable impacts, even if there are not additional factors, as there were in the early Reagan period. Looking back at the long declines that followed, the prospects are truly frightening if this should turn out to be the sort of deep impact recession that many others have warned us it could be.
What should be clear in any event is that economics alone is a poor measure of how well we are doing as a society, particularly when it comes to caring for the children who are the future of our society.
Here is the complete list of factors that go into determinig the scores for each of the domains:
Family Economic Well-Being Domain 1. Poverty Rate (All Families with Children)
2. Secure Parental Employment Rate
3. Median Annual Income (All Families with Children)
4. Rate of Children with Health Insurance
Health Domain 1. Infant Mortality Rate
2. Low Birth Weight Rate
3. Mortality Rate (Ages 1-19)
4. Rate of Children with Very Good or Excellent Health (as reported by parents)
5. Rate of Children with Activity Limitations (as reported by parents)
6. Rate of Overweight Children and Adolescents (Ages 6-19)
Safety/Behavioral Domain 1. Teenage Birth Rate (Ages 10-17)
2. Rate of Violent Crime Victimization (Ages 12-19)
3. Rate of Violent Crime Offenders (Ages 12-17)
4. Rate of Cigarette Smoking (Grade 12)
5. Rate of Binge Alcohol Drinking (Grade 12)
6. Rate of Illicit Drug Use (Grade 12)
Educational Attainment Domain 1. Reading Test Scores (Ages 9, 13, and 17)
2. Mathematics Test Scores (Ages 9, 13, and 17)
Community Connectedness 1. Rate of Persons who have Received a High School Diploma (Ages 18-24)
2. Rate of Youths Not Working and Not in School (Ages 16-19)
3. Rate of Pre-Kindergarten Enrollment (Ages 3-4)
4. Rate of Persons who have Received a Bachelor's Degree (Ages 25-29)
5. Rate of Voting in Presidential Elections (Ages 18-20)
Social Relationships Domain 1. Rate of Children in Families Headed by a Single Parent
2. Rate of Children who have Moved within the Last Year (Ages 1-18)
Emotional/Spiritual Well-Being Domain: 1. Suicide Rate (Ages 10-19)
2. Rate of Weekly Religious Attendance (Grade 12)
3. Percent who report Religion as Being Very Important (Grade 12)
