Baker, M., Gruber, J., Milligan, K. (2008). Universal child care, maternal labor supply, and family well-being. Journal of Political Economy, 116(4), 709-740.
Changes to the labour force have correlated with an increase in the proportion of children requiring child care services. The majority of children receiving non-parental care in Canada are from families in which both parents are employed. In Canada, subsidies for child care typically vary according to family income; however, from 1997 to 2000 the province of Québec implemented a universally subsidized child care program under the Québec Family Policy.
This paper evaluates the impact of the Québec Family Policy using a nationally representative sample from The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). Five waves of survey data from Québec were compared with the rest of Canada on measures related to the number of married/cohabiting mothers in the labour force, the use of paid and unpaid child care services, and outcomes for children and families. The primary exclusion criteria restricted the sample to children aged zero to four from two-parent families.
The study found substantial evidence linking the Québec Family Policy to negative outcomes for children and families. Parents reported a decline in outcomes for children on measures including those related to anxiety, illness, aggression, and motor skills. Parents self-reported a decline in health and their relationships with children and partners. Additionally, the study associated the Québec Family Policy with a significant increase in the use of child care services and participation of mothers in the labour force.
Results were subject to numerous checks to control for confounding factors including trend differences between Québec and the rest of Canada and changes in economic conditions. To clarify whether the negative outcomes reported reflect short-term problems or long-term effects, future research is recommended tracking forward the cohort of children affected by the Québec Family Policy. The impact of the policy on more heterogeneous child populations, such as those in preschool or living in lone parent households, remains unclear.
Snow, K. (2008). Disposable lives. Children and Youth Services Review, 30(11), 1289-1298.
Canadian youth in care were interviewed as part of a study aimed to sensitize child welfare workers to the issues of youth in care. The nonrandomized convenience sample of seven males and twenty females was asked about their care experiences, issues facing youth in care, and for suggestions as to how child welfare workers might best support youth in care.
Interview transcripts were used as a case study to test key dimensions of a theoretical model relevant to regulated care settings that related to: i) language, ii) interpersonal relations, iii) institutional relations, and iv) disciplinary practices. A multi-layered critical discourse analysis of the interview content identified three core themes: a disposable life; a regulated reality, and; a stained identity.
This paper presents a sub-analysis of the theme, a disposable life. Mirroring the nested approach to discourse analysis used in the original case study, the sections of the interview text related to a disposable life were examined in detail under the four dimensions of the theoretical model. Youth in care reported feeling powerless, invisible, frequently disappointed, like a "case," and discarded once out of care. The authors recommend child welfare workers actively involve youth in the care process, maintain consistent contact, elicit youths' perspectives, provide them information, ally and advocate on their behalf, and support them in forming long-term, secure and genuine relationships.
Wekerle, C., Leung, E., Wall, A.M., MacMillan, H., Boyle, M., Trocme, N., & Wacechter, R. (2009). The contribution of childhood emotional abuse to teen dating violence among child protective services-involved youth. Child Abuse & Neglect, 33(1), 45-58.
Emotional abuse may not be sufficiently considered by child protective services (CPS) when co-occurring with other forms of child maltreatment. Maltreated children are at a higher risk of developing maladaptive relationships, such as dating violence in adolescence. This study explored whether childhood emotional abuse, when examined alongside other forms of maltreatment, uniquely contributed to adolescent dating violence and might be mediated by trauma symptoms (e.g., PTSD).
A random list of over 1500 youth were identified for participation by 3 urban CPS agencies; however, only 640 were eligible for the study and several hundred chose not to participate. The sample of 402 CPS-involved youth aged 14 to 17 self-reported on measures of lifetime maltreatment, PTSD symptomology, and previous year dating experiences.
Results indicate CPS-involved youth are at high risk for dating violence; over half of dating females and almost half of dating males reported some level of violence perpetration and victimization. Emotional abuse was found to uniquely and significantly predict both trauma symptoms and dating violence, after statistically controlling for ethnicity, SES, length of time in care, and other maltreatment. In the final model trauma symptoms were found to mediate the effect of emotional abuse on dating violence (i.e., emotional abuse no longer predicted dating violence when trauma was added to the model). There was a gendered pattern of results whereby this model predicted male dating violence perpetration and female dating violence victimization.
Emotional maltreatment and dating violence should be evaluated and addressed in CPS interventions for youth. Attending to emotional abuse experiences, especially PTSD symptomology may be preventative. Youth need to be supported in discussing dating violence and healthy conflict resolution. Youth who were wards were overrepresented in this study and the results may not generalize to youth with shorter or no out-of-home placements.