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The current study examined whether young children's executive functions and emotionality are related to childcare experiences and whether they work as mediators explaining the associations between childcare experiences and early school outcomes. Findings from a national sample of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 990) revealed that centre-based care experiences and childcare quality positively predicted preschool children's executive functions, which then were linked to their academic skills and social skills in preschool and kindergarten years. Childcare hours were negatively related to executive functions. Further, childcare experiences did not predict children's emotionality, which was related to their social skills. Overall, childcare experiences, of higher quality, more structure and less hours, were modelled as predicting early school outcomes directly as well as indirectly through executive functioning.

The relationships between early maternal social support, maternal psychological well-being, the home learning environment, and children's language skills at age 3 in Korean families were examined. We hypothesized that maternal social support would predict children's language development through its effect on maternal psychological well-being and the home learning environment. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the conceptual model, using data collected from 1,725 Korean families who participated in the Panel Study of Korean Children. Mothers' early social support predicted children's language skills via 2 indirect paths. First, greater social support predicted more positively adjusted psychological well-being; maternal psychological well-being was significantly associated with the quality of the home learning environment, which in turn predicted the positive development of language skills in children. Second, greater social support predicted a better home learning environment; again, the home learning environment positively predicted children's linguistic development. The direct paths from social support to language development were not significant. Social support during the child's infancy was observed to be beneficial for stimulating the home learning environment later. A comparison between working mothers versus nonworking mothers yielded no significant differences in the relationships between the variables. The results shed light on the importance of sensitive measures of social support in order to better understand its beneficial effects on mothers and young children.

We examine the effects of 10 welfare and employment programs on single mothers' use of Head Start for their 3- to 4-year-old children, considering concurrent program effects on employment, income, and the use of other types of childcare settings. In general, these welfare and employment experiments increased parental employment and the use of center-and home-based childcare, but decreased families' use of Head Start. The findings suggest that two types of policies affecting low-income families--welfare and employment on the one hand, and early childhood intervention on the other--are operating independently, and may actually conflict. Policy-induced increases in maternal employment generated an increased need for childcare; however, mothers did not appear to use Head Start to meet this need, instead increasing their use of other types of care arrangements. The part-day, part-year structure of Head Start at the time of these programs and issues of eligibility are discussed as potential barriers to the use of Head Start among low-income families under a welfare system that requires parents to work.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the direct and indirect relationships among economic hardship, economic strain, emotional stress, and couple conflict for married Koreans during the COVID‐19 pandemic. In particular, we investigated whether these pathways were different between lower and higher socioeconomic status (SES) groups. Background: Due to the global economic downturn brought on by COVID‐19, many couples experienced economic hardship including increased household debt, job loss, and reduced work hours. This context provides a valuable opportunity to test the family stress model (FSM) of romantic relationships, which explains the indirect pathways from economic hardship to couple‐level outcomes. Method: We collected the data using an online survey in May 2020, when the Seoul metropolitan area experienced the first surge of COVID‐19 cases. The sample came from 605 married Korean adults (282 women, 323 men) and was analyzed using multigroup path analysis. Results: Among the three markers of economic hardship, increased household debt had a stronger association with couple conflict for lower SES respondents directly and indirectly through elevated economic strain and emotional distress. The total effects of job loss and reduced work hours on more frequent couple conflict were stronger for the higher SES group. Conclusion: The process from the three markers of economic hardship to couple conflict was different depending on socioeconomic resources. Implications: Family practitioners need to consider SES variations and to work with financial counselors to better support couples with both economic and relationship difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Draws on data from three demonstration studies to examine predictors of low-income parents' child care use, child care problems, and public subsidy receipt. Finds that the best predictors of center-based care use were ages and number of children, parents' education, and personal beliefs about family and work. Race and ethnicity effects were inconsistent. Subsidies were most effective in reaching parents with relatively less consistent prior employment experience. (Author/KB)