Search

The study examined subjective well-being of 10- to 12-year-old children from rural South Korea (n = 489) and rural United States (n = 1286) using the Children's Worlds Survey within the framework of the ecological, relationship-based model of children's subjective well-being. Applying Structural Equation Modeling to the analysis, a large proportion of the variance was explained and children's subjective well-being was predicted in both countries by microsystem factors of family relationships, parent involvement, and school quality, and individual factors of age (younger), and gender (male). Additional microsystem factors predicting subjective well-being were neighborhood quality in South Korea, and peer relationships in the United States, which may reflect contextual influences of collectivistic (South Korea) and individualistic (United States) macrosystems.

Studies have shown that there are important differences in children's subjective well-being across nations. However, it has been difficult to explain why this level is lower or higher in certain countries. Using data from the Children's Worlds project, this study examines how much of the country-level children's subjective well-being can be explained by various social and cultural contextual factors. More specifically, we decompose the levels of children's overall subjective well-being to seven factors that are known to be important for children's well-being including leisure, environment, learning, money, relationship, freedom to choose, and self. After the decomposition, the unexplained part (intercept and residual) for each country is considered to represent cultural reporting bias. We found that cultural reporting bias cannot explain all of the variances in children's subjective well-being across nations. Rather, we found that the freedom to choose and self are the two most important factors that explain vast share of the variances in the overall levels of children's subjective well-being across nations. The paper also provides social policy implications of the study results.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of the Vision Plan Program, a youth employment support program in South Korea. In this study, we used the survey data collected on program participants and non-participants in 11 communities over a three-year period (2016 to 2018). We used the difference-in-difference method to examine the effectiveness of the program while controlling for both observed and unobserved characteristics of the treatment and comparison groups. We focused on the two primary outcomes of the program: (1) intention to find a job and (2) probability of being not in employment, education, or training (NEET). The analysis results show that the intention of the program participants to find a job increased to 8.3% compared to that of non-participants during the three-year program period. We also found the positive effect of the program on reducing the risk of NEET. The probability of being NEET of the program participants decreased to 6.6% more compared to non-participants during the three-year period. We provide discussion of the possible policy implications and limitations of this study.

The primary purpose of our study is to examine the effects of family poverty on low birth weight using individual-level data from a longitudinal survey based on nationally representative sample in Korea. In this paper, we also aim to extend our understanding of the relationship between poverty and low birth weight by examining what factors mediate the effects of poverty on low birth weight. We find that there is a significant relationship between family poverty and the likelihood of low birth weight. Even after controlling for other sociodemographic variables in our models, we find that family poverty is a strong predictor of a low birth weight birth. We also find that mother's depression partially mediates the effect of poverty on low birth weight. Our results suggest that more prevention-based prenatal services are needed for low income pregnant women in Korea. Comprehensive prenatal services that include parental education, counseling, nutritional services, screening services, and home visitation can be an effective policy tool to prevent low birth weight births.

This study examines the relationship between WIC and Food Stamp Program participation and young children's health and maltreatment outcomes, utilizing a unique individual-level longitudinal database linking administrative datasets on WIC and Food Stamp Program (FSP) participation, Medicaid enrollment and claims, and child abuse and neglect reports in Illinois. Using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) methods, the data show that any of the three program participation types (joint WIC and FSP, WIC only, and FSP only) is associated with a lower risk of abuse and neglect reports, and of diagnosis of several nutrition related health problems such as anemia, failure to thrive, and nutritional deficiency. When we control for the possible selection bias using sibling fixed-effects models, the results were essentially unchanged suggesting no evidence of selection bias in the OLS results. The findings are significant indicators of the benefits of WIC and FSP participation among low-income young children. Furthermore, the findings about the lower risk of abuse and neglect is significant because it offers some evidence that participation in programs such as WIC and FSP that offer family supports not directly aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect may protect children.

We examine child maltreatment among the 1982–1988 birth cohorts in Illinois specific to three categories of maltreatment allegations: sexual abuse, other types of abuse, and neglect. Using multinomial logit regression, we examine the effects of seven independent variables on allegation-specific child maltreatment. The independent variables examined are mother's age at birth, community child poverty rate, birth year, region, sex of the child, birth order and race or ethnicity. We find that, even after controlling for other sociodemographic variables, maternal age and poverty are each strong predictors of a substantiated report of all types of child maltreatment. The results indicate that the two factors combined compound the risk of being a victim of substantiated child maltreatment. This finding suggests that a more comprehensive approach that aims to lessen the economic stress of young mothers while addressing their parenting skills may have a direct effect on reducing child maltreatment.