Dynamics of Child Development : Analysis of a Longitudinal Cohort in a Very Low Income Country

Galasso, Emanuela ; Weber, Ann ; Fernald, Lia C. H.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: childhood development;    nutrition;    socioeconomic gradients;    low-income country;    inequality;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7973
RP-ID  :  WPS7973

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Longitudinal patterns of childdevelopment and socioeconomic status are described for acohort of children in Madagascar who were surveyed when theywere 3–6 and 7-10 years old. Substantial wealth gradientswere found across multiple domains: receptive vocabulary,cognition, sustained attention, and working memory. Theresults are robust to the inclusion of lagged outcomes,maternal endowments, measures of child health, and homestimulation. Wealth gradients are significant at ages 3–4,widen with age, and flatten out by ages 9-10. For vocabularyand sustained attention, the gradient grows steadily betweenages three and six; for cognitive composite and memory ofphrases, the gradient widens later (ages 7-8) beforeflattening out. These gaps in cognitive outcomes translateinto equally sizeable gaps in learning outcomes. Between 12and 18 percent of the predicted gap in early outcomes isaccounted for by differences in home stimulation, even aftercontrolling for maternal education and endowments.