Lawrence Berger - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Lawrence Berger

PLOS ONE, 2021

The spread of COVID-19 and resulting local and national lockdowns have a host of potential conseq... more The spread of COVID-19 and resulting local and national lockdowns have a host of potential consequences for demographic trends. While impacts on mortality and, to some extent, short-term migration flows are beginning to be documented, it is too early to measure actual consequences for family demography. To gain insight into potential future consequences of the lockdown for family demography, we use cross-national Google Trends search data to explore whether trends in searches for words related to fertility, relationship formation, and relationship dissolution changed following lockdowns compared to average, pre-lockdown levels in Europe and the United States. Because lockdowns were not widely anticipated or simultaneous in timing or intensity, we exploit variability over time and between countries (and U.S. states). We use a panel event-study design and difference-in-differences methods, and account for seasonal trends and average country-level (or state-level) differences in search...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Oct 11, 2017

This exploratory study examines combinations of income-tested welfare benefits and earnings, as t... more This exploratory study examines combinations of income-tested welfare benefits and earnings, as they relate to the likelihood of child maltreatment investigations among low-income families with young children participating in a nutritional assistance program in one U.S. state (Wisconsin). Using a sample of 1065 parents who received the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits in late 2010 and early 2011, we find that relying on either work in the absence of other means-tested welfare benefits, or a combination of work and welfare benefits, reduces the likelihood of CPS involvement compared to parents who rely on welfare benefits in the absence of work. Additionally, we find that housing instability increases the risk of CPS involvement in this population. The findings from this investigation may be useful to programs serving low-income families with young children, as they attempt to identify safety net resources for their clientele.

Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science, Nov 1, 2020

This volume of The ANNALS aims to increase awareness among scholars, policy-makers, and practitio... more This volume of The ANNALS aims to increase awareness among scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners of the size, scope, and functions of child welfare services in the United States. We aim to promote a wider understanding of the broad impacts of child welfare policies and point to ways in which child welfare services can be better incorporated into cross-cutting social policy debates. The articles in this volume offer concrete recommendations for policies and practices that can reduce child maltreatment, and for systemic approaches—both within the purview of child welfare services and across the broader community and social policy landscape—that can better identify and respond to the needs of children and families in which maltreatment has already occurred or where there is a risk of abuse and neglect. This introduction sets a foundation for understanding the contents of the volume: we provide an overview of child welfare services in the United States and highlight current challenges that the U.S. child welfare systems face.

Journal of The Society for Social Work and Research, Dec 1, 2019

Objective: We explore common income/benefits combinations by demographic characteristics among lo... more Objective: We explore common income/benefits combinations by demographic characteristics among low-income families with young children. Understanding how such families package their income sources can help identify critical components of the economic safety net and the relative contributions these income sources make in supporting low-income families’ basic needs. Method: We used longitudinal state administrative data on means-tested benefits, child support, and earnings, as well as data from a survey of primary caregivers (N = 1,065) in Wisconsin families receiving WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) benefits in 2010–2011. We used cluster analysis techniques to identify unique income packaging strategies. Results: Respondents were most likely to rely on Medicaid, followed by SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and employment income. Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income were the most stable safety net components. We identified 4 groups distinguished by the extent to which individuals worked for pay and received various types of benefits or child support and found significant demographic differences across clusters. Conclusions: This study reaffirms past findings illustrating the complexity of the U.S. economic safety net and highlighting the need for staff across programs serving low-income families to understand eligibility criteria and rules of local safety net components.

Child Abuse & Neglect, May 1, 2017

Children who have been exposed to maltreatment and other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are... more Children who have been exposed to maltreatment and other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are at increased risk for various negative adult health outcomes, including cancer, liver disease, substance abuse, and depression. However, the proximal associations between ACEs and behavioral outcomes during the middle childhood years have been understudied. In addition, many of the ACE studies contain methodological limitations such as reliance on retrospective reports and limited generalizability to populations of lower socioeconomic advantage. The current study uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Well being Study, a national urban birth cohort, to prospectively assess the adverse experiences and subsequent behavior problems of over 3,000 children. Eight ACE categories to which a child was exposed by age 5 were investigated: childhood abuse (emotional and physical), neglect (emotional and physical), and parental domestic violence, anxiety or depression, substance abuse, or incarceration. Results from bivariate analyses indicated that Black children and children with mothers of low education were particularly likely to have been exposed to multiple ACE categories. Regression analyses showed that exposure to ACEs is strongly associated with externalizing and internalizing behaviors and likelihood of ADHD diagnosis in middle childhood. Variation in these associations by racial/ethnic, gender, and maternal education subgroups are examined. This study provides evidence that children as young as 9 begin to show behavioral problems after exposure to early childhood adversities.

Children and Youth Services Review, Oct 1, 2022

This study uses an instrumental variables strategy to estimate the effect of income on both CPS i... more This study uses an instrumental variables strategy to estimate the effect of income on both CPS involvement and a range of parenting behaviors that proxy for child maltreatment risk in the areas of physical abuse, physical neglect, lack of supervision, and emotional abuse. Following the strategy used by Dahl and Lochner (2012), we take advantage of differences between states and over time in the generosity of the total state and federal Earned Income Tax Credit to identify exogenous variation in family income. Our individual-level data are drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal birth-cohort of relatively disadvantaged urban children who have been followed from birth to age nine. Results suggest that an exogenous increase in income is associated with relatively large reductions in the probability of both CPS involvement and risk for physical child neglect; we find less consistent evidence with regard to the other maltreatment risk proxies. These findings suggest that there is a causal link between income and CPS involvement, which most likely reflects a causal link between income and physical neglect-the most common form of maltreatment and the form of maltreatment most strongly correlated with poverty. Given that child neglect and CPS involvement impose tremendous economic costs to both victims and society as a whole, this research suggests that economic support policies may be an efficient prevention strategy for physical neglect, and also that child welfare interventions may be well served by addressing families' economic issues.

Review of Economics of the Household, Sep 29, 2016

This study estimates the associations of income with both (self-reported) child protective servic... more This study estimates the associations of income with both (self-reported) child protective services (CPS) involvement and parenting behaviors that proxy for child abuse and neglect risk among unmarried families. Our primary strategy follows the instrumental variables (IV) approach employed by Dahl and Lochner (2012), which leverages variation between states and over time in the generosity of the total state and federal Earned Income Tax Credit for which a family is eligible to identify exogenous variation in family income. As a robustness check, we also estimate standard OLS regressions (linear probability models), reduced form OLS regressions, and OLS regressions with the inclusion of a control function (each with and without family-specific fixed effects). Our micro-level data are drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal birth-cohort of relatively disadvantaged urban children who have been followed from birth to age nine. Results suggest that an exogenous increase in income is associated with reductions in behaviorally-approximated child neglect and CPS involvement, particularly among low-income single-mother families.

Supplemental material, font_online_supplement_ for Permanency and the Educational and Economic At... more Supplemental material, font_online_supplement_ for Permanency and the Educational and Economic Attainment of Former Foster Children in Early Adulthood by Sarah A. Font, Lawrence M. Berger, Maria Cancian and Jennifer L. Noyes in American Sociological Review

Maria Following the passage of welfare reform in the mid-1990s and the end of entitlement benefit... more Maria Following the passage of welfare reform in the mid-1990s and the end of entitlement benefits under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the U.S. economic safety net has become increasingly individualized. In fact, it is no longer clear whether low-income families tend to rely on particular types of public benefits, or whether there are characteristics that differentiate benefit “packaging. ” Furthermore, the extent to which child support, as a source of family income, varies as a function of benefit packaging and earnings from employment is not known. This project examines the combinations of child support and other sources of income (including earnings) comprising economic safety nets for low-income families. In addition to child support and earnings, the income sources we explore include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, child care subsidies, unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, Supplemental Secu...

Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2019

Background Beginning in 2014-2015, schools nationwide have had the option of offering free meals ... more Background Beginning in 2014-2015, schools nationwide have had the option of offering free meals to all students in qualifying schools through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). The CEP has been linked to greater likelihood of eating school meals, but little is known about its impact on broader outcomes. Objective The purpose of this study was to estimate the association between the CEP and school attendance among elementary school students (grades 1 to 5). Design This was a quasi-experimental study in which students' attendance records were observed over 1 baseline and 2 follow-up years in a sample of CEP and eligible non-CEP schools. Participants/setting The participants were elementary school students in Wisconsin during three consecutive school years beginning 2013-2014. The main sample included 92,126 observation-years for students in 37 CEP and 108 eligible non-CEP elementary schools. Intervention CEP-participating schools offered breakfast and lunch free to all students through the School Breakfast Program and the National School Lunch Program beginning in 2014-2015. Main outcome measures The outcome measures were the attendance rate (defined as the percentage of school days attended) and low attendance (defined as attending fewer than 95% of available days) during the first and second implementation years. Statistical analyses performed Difference-indifference regression models with student fixed effects were estimated, with separate impacts for the first and second CEP years. Models adjusted for time-varying school and student characteristics. Results Implementing the CEP had no association with attendance in the initial year. The second year of CEP was associated with a 3.5 percentage point reduction in the percentage of students with low attendance (P¼0.045). An association between CEP and attendance was only found for economically disadvantaged students. Conclusions Offering meals free to all students through the CEP may modestly reduce the risk of low attendance among economically disadvantaged students in participating schools.

Sleep Medicine, 2019

This study examined the associations between four types of screen-based activities and depressive... more This study examined the associations between four types of screen-based activities and depressive symptoms among adolescents. We further investigated whether sleep characteristics (i.e., insomnia symptoms and sleep duration) mediate these associations. Data come from 2865 U.S. adolescents (mean age=15.53, SD=.73, 51.8% male) in the age 15 follow-up of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Adolescents completed surveys regarding sleep duration and insomnia symptoms, typical daily duration of four screen activities (social messaging, web surfing, TV/movie watching, and gaming), and depressive symptoms. We constructed a multiple mediation model to elucidate the associations between age 15 screen time, sleep and depressive symptoms, while adjusting for age 9 depressive symptoms. Structural Equation Modeling analyses revealed that the association between screen time and depressive symptoms is partially or fully mediated by sleep. For social messaging, web surfing and TV/movie watching, the three sleep variables fully mediated the positive association between screen time and depressive symptoms. For gaming, the three sleep variables acted as partial

Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2018

Rigid work schedules are negatively associated with adults' sleep. Less is known about whether pa... more Rigid work schedules are negatively associated with adults' sleep. Less is known about whether parents' work schedule flexibility influences their children's sleep. We examined associations of mothers' perceived work schedule flexibility with their children's sleep over time and whether these associations were mediated by bedtime routine adherence. Two-waves of data were drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a sample of socioeconomically disadvantaged households in large US cities (N = 1040). When the focal children were ages 5 and 9, mothers reported their work schedule flexibility and their child's bedtime adherence, sleep duration, and difficulty getting to sleep. Cross-sectionally, higher levels of maternal perceived work schedule flexibility were associated with longer child sleep duration and a lower likelihood of having difficulty getting to sleep; these associations were mediated by greater child bedtime adherence. Longitudinally, increases in mothers' perceived work schedule flexibility from child ages 5 to 9 predicted increases in child bedtime adherence at age 9, which, in turn, predicted increases in child sleep duration at age 9. Increases in perceived work schedule flexibility also predicted a decreased likelihood of children having difficulty getting to sleep, but this association was not mediated by changes in child bedtime adherence. These results suggest that mothers' perceived work schedule flexibility may be a social determinant of child sleep health, largely through influencing bedtime adherence. Future interventions could consider how to improve bedtime practices in families with working mothers, including by increasing work schedule flexibility perceived by working parents to promote child sleep health. Keywords Bedtime routines • Child sleep • Sleep duration • Difficulty getting to sleep • Maternal work schedule

Journal of community health, Jan 18, 2018

Prenatal care coordination programs direct pregnant Medicaid beneficiaries to medical, social, an... more Prenatal care coordination programs direct pregnant Medicaid beneficiaries to medical, social, and educational services to improve birth outcomes. Despite the relevance of service context and treatment level to investigations of program implementation and estimates of program effect, prior investigations have not consistently attended to these factors. This study examines the reach and uptake of Wisconsin's Prenatal Care Coordination (PNCC) program among Medicaid-covered, residence occurrence live births between 2008 and 2012. Data come from the Big Data for Little Kids project, which harmonizes birth records with multiple state administrative sources. Logistic regression analyses measured the association between county- and maternal-level factors and the odds of any PNCC use and the odds of PNCC uptake (> 2 PNCC services among those assessed). Among identified Medicaid-covered births (n = 136,057), approximately 24% (n = 33,249) received any PNCC and 17% (n = 22,680) took up...

Child Welfare Research, 2008

Using survey and administrative data, this chapter presents analyses of co-occurring intimate par... more Using survey and administrative data, this chapter presents analyses of co-occurring intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment allegations in a sample of current and former welfare recipients (N = 1,011). Results show a co-occurrence rate of six percent within an approximate one-year time interval. In the subgroup of families with co-occurring IPV and child maltreatment allegations (n = 65), sixty-eight percent of investigated maltreatment reports involve the female IPV victim as a perpetrator. Findings also show that multiple forms of IPV and child maltreatment should be considered when assessing co-occurrence. Compared to families that experience one or neither form of family violence, families with both IPV and child maltreatment allegations have higher levels of parental depression and stress, greater use of harsh discipline, lower parental warmth, and poorer parental physical health. Results from this study are relevant to systems that serve families experiencing I...

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-jrc-10.1177_00224278211001566 for Foster Care, Permanency, and Ri... more Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-jrc-10.1177_00224278211001566 for Foster Care, Permanency, and Risk of Prison Entry by Sarah Font, Lawrence M. Berger, Jessie Slepicka and Maria Cancan in Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

Demography

Proponents of early childhood education and care programs cite evidence that high-quality center-... more Proponents of early childhood education and care programs cite evidence that high-quality center-based childcare has positive impacts on child development, particularly for disadvantaged children. However, much of this evidence stems from randomized evaluations of small-scale intensive programs based in the United States and other Anglo/English-speaking countries. Evidence is more mixed with respect to widespread or universal center-based childcare provision. In addition, most evidence is based on childcare experiences of 3- to 5-year-old children; less is known about the impact of center-based care in earlier childhood. The French context is particularly suited to such interrogation because the majority of French children who attend center-based care do so in high-quality, state-funded, state-regulated centers, known as crèches, and before age 3. We use data from a large, nationally representative French birth cohort, the Étude Longitudinale Français depuis l'Enfance (Elfe), an...