“The Long-term Effects on Children and Adolescents of a Policy Providing Work Supports for Low-income Parents” in the autumn 2011 issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management is co-authored by Anjali Gupta, Center research associate, Jessica Thornton Walker, Chantelle J. Dowsett, Sylvia R. Epps, Amy E. Imes, Vonnie C. McLoyd, and Aletha C. Huston, who is also a long-time partner of the Center.
The authors review “New Hope”, a random-assignment experiment of an employment-based poverty reduction intervention program for adults, and explore if the positive effects of the program on the young children of participants diminished or reversed when children reached adolescence. Their evaluation showed that small positive impacts on school progress, school motivation, positive social behavior, child well-being, and parent control endured, but impacts on school achievement and problem behavior were no longer evident eight years after the random assignment.
Anjali Gupta holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas and is a research associate at the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources. Gupta’s previous research has focused on relations between low-income mothers’ psychological well-being and economic/employment outcomes. Her research illuminates the complexity inherent in the work/ family balance debate and highlights a potential need for increased mental distress screening and treatment.
Aletha C. Huston is the Pricilla Pond Flawn Regents Professor of Child Development Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin and serves as the principal investigator of the New Hope project. She received her Ph.D in psychology and child development from the University of Minnesota.
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