Katherine Magnuson
Biographic Data
| ID | 213234 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Katherine Magnuson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Katherine |
| FAMILY NAME | Magnuson |
| SIGNATURE | MAGNUSON K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1140-1200 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 62 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1319 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 62 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
The Impact of Unconditional Cash on Parenting Behaviors Among 4‐Year‐Old Children From Families With Low Incomes in the US
Family child care closures in Wisconsin: A mixed-methods study with implications for infant-toddler care
Cash to carrots: Testing food environment mediation of cash transfer effects on children's diet in the Baby's First Years Study
Not an option”: How mothers with limited incomes view barriers to child care use for infants and toddlers
Early care and education teachers’ job search behaviors and turnover intentions during the Covid-19 pandemic: Evidence from Wisconsin
A Research Note on Unconditional Cash Transfers and Fertility in the United States: New Causal Evidence
As cash transfer policies have gained traction in recent years, interest in how financial resources could impact fertility has also grown. Increasing an individual's purchasing power with additional economic resources, such as those provided in unconditional cash transfers, might better enable parents to meet their fertility and reproductive goals, whether those goals are to become pregnant and give birth or to avoid or terminate pregnancies. In …
Examining the Role of Public Pre-K Expansions in the Changing Supply of Child Care in Wisconsin
Child-directed speech in a large sample of U.S. mothers with low income
Research on early language input and socioeconomic status typically relies on correlations in small convenience samples. Using data from Baby's First Years, this paper assesses the causal impact of monthly, unconditional cash transfers on child-directed speech and child vocalizations among a large, racially diverse sample of low-income U.S. mothers and their 1-year-olds (N = 563; 48% girls; 2019–2020). The monthly, unconditional cash transfers di…
Poverty reduction and childhood opportunity moves: A randomized trial of cash transfers to low-income U.S. families with infants
Child care access for families raising children with disabilities
Unconditional Cash and Breastfeeding, Child Care, and Maternal Employment among Families with Young Children Residing in Poverty
Poverty interferes with parents' breastfeeding, child-care, and employment options and ability to meet their parenting goals. This study-the first randomized controlled trial of early childhood poverty reduction in the United States-investigates how increased economic resources affect 1,000 low-income US mothers' breastfeeding, child-care, and employment practices and the ability to meet their intentions for these practices in the first year of t…
The effect of unconditional cash transfers on maternal assessments of children’s early language and socioemotional development: Experimental evidence from U.S. families residing in poverty
Economic disadvantage has often been associated with poorer performance on measures of early childhood development. However, the causal impacts of income on child development remain unclear. The present study uses data from the Baby's First Years randomized control trial to identify the causal impact of unconditional cash transfers on maternal reports of early childhood development. One thousand racially and ethnically diverse mothers residing in…
Effects of a monthly unconditional cash transfer starting at birth on family investments among US families with low income
Mental health and sleep quality of low‐income mothers of one‐year‐olds during the Covid‐19 pandemic
The COVID‐19 pandemic and subsequent social restrictions created an unprecedented context for families raising young children. Although studies have documented detrimental effects of the pandemic on maternal well‐being, less is known about how the pandemic specifically impacted low‐income mothers. We examined depression, anxiety, and sleep quality among low‐income mothers of one‐year‐olds during the early months of the pandemic using data from th…
Does early childhood education help to improve high school outcomes? Results from Tulsa
Early childhood education contributes to improved school readiness but impacts on high school remain unclear. This study estimates the effects of Tulsa, Oklahoma's universal pre-K and Head Start programs through the junior year of high school (in 2018/2019; N = 2902; Mage = 16.52, SD = .39; 48% female; 28% white, 34% Black, 27% Hispanic, 8% Native American). Propensity score weighted regressions suggest students who attended pre-K, but not Head S…
Unconditional cash transfers and maternal substance use: Findings from a randomized control trial of low-income mothers with infants in the U.S
Registered on Clinical Trials.gov NCT03593356 in July of 2018
Supporting Children's Early Development by Building Caregivers' Capacities and Skills: A Theoretical Approach Informed by New Neuroscience Research
The potential of parent training and professional development programs for improving early childhood experiences and later outcomes is well established. Yet traditional models of training and support, which largely consist of providing information to parents and teachers, have not met the needs of caregivers who experience the greatest levels of adversity. In this article, we describe the challenges faced by low‐income parents and nonparental car…
How does disability influence child care arrangements for young children? An examination using the NHES ECPP
Do Parental Work Hours and Nonstandard Schedules Explain Income-Based Gaps in Center-Based Early Care and Education Participation
Despite increases in public funding for early care and education (ECE) programs in recent decades, low-income children ages 0–5 years are less likely to be enrolled in center-based ECE programs compared with higher-income children. Low-income working parents are also more likely to work jobs with nonstandard schedules, which are associated with lower rates of center-based ECE. This study examines whether parents’ work hours and nonstandard schedu…
Anti-poverty Policy Innovations: New Proposals for Addressing Poverty in the United States
Lawrence M. Berger, Maria Cancian, Katherine Magnuson, Anti-Poverty Policy Innovations: New Proposals for Addressing Poverty in the United States, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 2, Anti-Poverty Policy Initiatives for the United States (February 2018), pp. 1-19
Anti-poverty Policy Innovations: New Proposals for Addressing Poverty in the United States
LAWRENCE M. BERGER, MARIA CANCIAN, KATHERINE MAGNUSON, Anti-Poverty Policy Innovations, RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 3, Anti-Poverty Policy Initiatives for the United States (FEBRUARY 2018), pp. 1-19
Moving Beyond Correlations in Assessing the Consequences of Poverty
In the United States, does growing up in a poor household cause negative developmental outcomes for children? Hundreds of studies have documented statistical associations between family income in childhood and a host of outcomes in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Many of these studies have used correlational evidence to draw policy conclusions regarding the benefits of added family income for children, in particular children in families wi…
Classroom quality and children’s academic skills in child care centers: Understanding the role of teacher qualifications
Family poverty and neighborhood poverty: Links with children's school readiness before and after the Great Recession
Impacts of Early Childhood Education on Medium- and Long-Term Educational Outcomes
Despite calls to expand early childhood education (ECE) in the United States, questions remain regarding its medium- and long-term impacts on educational outcomes. We use meta-analysis of 22 high-quality experimental and quasi-experimental studies conducted between 1960 and 2016 to find that on average, participation in ECE leads to statistically significant reductions in special education placement ( d = 0.33 SD , 8.1 percentage points) and grad…
School readiness and later achievement
Using 6 longitudinal data sets, the authors estimate links between three key elements of school readiness--school-entry academic, attention, and socioemotional skills--and later school reading and math achievement. In an effort to isolate the effects of these school-entry skills, the authors ensured that most of their regression models control for cognitive, attention, and socioemotional skills measured prior to school entry, as well as a host of…
The Importance of Early Childhood Poverty
Maternal education and children's academic achievement during middle childhood
Despite much evidence that links mothers' educational attainment to children's academic outcomes, studies have not established whether increases in mothers' education will improve their children's academic achievement. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on children between the ages of 6 and 12, this study examined whether increases in mothers' educational attainment are associated with changes in children's academic achieve…
Family Structure States and Transitions: Associations With Children's Well-Being During Middle Childhood
Using longitudinal data from the Maternal and Child Supplement of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,862) and Hierarchical Linear Models, we estimated associations of family structure states and transitions with children's achievement and behavior trajectories during middle childhood. Results suggest that residing in a single-mother family was associated with small increases in behavior problems and decreases in achievement and that…
Inequality in Preschool Education and School Readiness
Attendance in U.S. preschools has risen substantially in recent decades, but gaps in enrollment between children from advantaged and disadvantaged families remain. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999, we analyze the effect of participation in child care and early education on children’s school readiness as measured by early reading and math skills in kindergarten and first grade. We find that ch…
Family Structure Transitions and Changes in Maternal Resources and Well-being
This article uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine whether family instability is associated with changes in perceived social support, material hardship, maternal depression, and parenting stress among mothers of young children. In addition to accounting for the number of transitions that a mother experiences during the first five years of her child’s life, we pay close attention to the type and timing of these t…
From statistical associations to causation: What developmentalists can learn from instrumental variables techniques coupled with experimental data
In this article, the authors aim to make accessible the careful application of a method called instrumental variables (IV). Under the right analytic conditions, IV is one promising strategy for answering questions about the causal nature of associations and, in so doing, can advance developmental theory. The authors build on prior work combining the analytic approach of IV with the strengths of random assignment design, whether the experiment is …
Investing in Preschool Programs
We summarize the available evidence on the extent to which expenditures on early childhood education programs constitute worthy social investments in the human capital of children. We provide an overview of existing early childhood education programs, and then summarize results from a substantial body of methodologically sound evaluations of the impacts of early childhood education. The evidence supports few unqualified conclusions. Many early ch…
Impacts of Early Childhood Education on Medium- and Long-Term Educational Outcomes
Despite calls to expand early childhood education (ECE) in the United States, questions remain regarding its medium- and long-term impacts on educational outcomes. We use meta-analysis of 22 high-quality experimental and quasi-experimental studies conducted between 1960 and 2016 to find that on average, participation in ECE leads to statistically significant reductions in special education placement ( d = 0.33 SD , 8.1 percentage points) and grad…
Preschool and School Readiness of Children of Immigrants
Objective. In this article, we use data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Kindergarten Cohort to analyze the links between preschool attendance and the school readiness of children of immigrants. Methods. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Kindergarten Cohort, we estimate multivariate regression models for the effects of preschool on school readiness for children of immigrants and children of natives. Results. We f…
Low-Income Fathers' Influence on Children
This article examines what we know about how low-income fathers matter for children. The authors first provide a theoretical background about how parents generally (and fathers more specifically) are expected to influence children's development and well-being. The authors note the importance of considering differences across children's age, gender, and race/ethnicity; and they identify key methodological challenges in this area. Then, they summar…
The persistence of preschool effects: Do subsequent classroom experiences matter
Child Support and Young Children’s Development
This study examines the effects of nonresident fathers' provision of formal and informal cash child support on children's cognitive skills and behavior at 5 years of age. Taking advantage of the panel structure of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we control for child outcomes at age 3 and a rich set of child and family sociodemographic and psychosocial characteristics. We find that fathers' provision of informal cash support (but n…
Public Funding and Enrollment in Formal Child Care in the 1990s
Although the share of all 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children enrolled in center‐based care and early education has grown steadily in recent decades, rates of enrollment for children from low‐income families still lag behind those for children from families with high incomes. During the 1990s, growing public funding for compensatory preschool education and means‐tested child‐care assistance had the potential to increase the availability of free or low‐cos…
Child care and school performance in Denmark and the United States
Patterns of child care subsidy receipt and the stability of child care
The added impact of parenting education in early childhood education programs: A meta-analysis
Classroom quality and children’s academic skills in child care centers: Understanding the role of teacher qualifications
Employment and the Risk of Domestic Abuse Among Low-Income Women
This paper uses data from 2 randomized evaluations of welfare-to-work programs-the Minnesota Family Investment Program and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies-to estimate the effect of employment on domestic abuse among low-income single mothers. Unique to our analysis is the application of a 2-stage least squares method, in which random assignment enables us to control for omitted characteristics that might otherwise confound t…
Early education: Progress and promise for children from low-income families
Do Parental Work Hours and Nonstandard Schedules Explain Income-Based Gaps in Center-Based Early Care and Education Participation
Despite increases in public funding for early care and education (ECE) programs in recent decades, low-income children ages 0–5 years are less likely to be enrolled in center-based ECE programs compared with higher-income children. Low-income working parents are also more likely to work jobs with nonstandard schedules, which are associated with lower rates of center-based ECE. This study examines whether parents’ work hours and nonstandard schedu…
Do the effects of early childhood education programs differ by gender? A meta-analysis
Family economic well-being following the 1996 welfare reform: Trend data from five non-experimental panel studies
Family poverty and neighborhood poverty: Links with children's school readiness before and after the Great Recession
Can Early Childhood Interventions Decrease Inequality of Economic Opportunity
This paper considers whether expanding access to center-based early childhood education (ECE) will reduce economic inequality later in life. A strong evidence base indicates that ECE is effective at improving young children's academic skills and human capital development. We review evidence that children from low-income families have lower rates of preschool enrollment than their more affluent peers. Our analysis indicates that increasing enrollm…
Work-Based Antipoverty Programs for Parents Can Enhance the School Performance and Social Behavior of Children
We assess the impact of the New Hope Project, an antipoverty program tested in a random assignment experimental design, on family functioning and developmental outcomes for preschool- and school-aged children (N = 913). New Hope offered wage supplements sufficient to raise family income above the poverty threshold and subsidies for child care and health insurance to adults who worked full-time. New Hope had strong positive effects on boys' academ…
Economics and Parenting
Economic models of marriage, fertility, and childrearing and the empirical studies they have spawned constitute important contributions to the science of parenting
The Promise of Random-Assignment Social Experiments for Understanding Well-Being and Behavior
This article explains how large-scale random-assignment social experiments such as the Canadian Self-Sufficiency Project can address important sociological and developmental issues. The authors begin with an explanation of how random assignment solves the bias problem that plagues most research based on sample surveys. They then review methods and results from two recent sets of random-assignment experiments, one manipulating family economic cond…
The Endogeneity Problem in Developmental Studies
Estimates of developmental models of processes involving contextual influences (e.g., child care arrangements, divorce, parenting, neighborhood location, peers) are subject to bias if, as is often the case, the contexts are influenced by the actions of ei-ther the individuals being studied or their parents or teachers. We assessed the nature of the endogeneity biases that may result, discuss the importance of such biases in practice, and suggest …
Inequality in Preschool Education and School Readiness
Attendance in U.S. preschools has risen substantially in recent decades, but gaps in enrollment between children from advantaged and disadvantaged families remain. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999, we analyze the effect of participation in child care and early education on children’s school readiness as measured by early reading and math skills in kindergarten and first grade. We find that ch…
Comment les expériences sociales avec assignation aléatoire permettent de mieux comprendre le comportement et les politiques de bien-être1
Cet article explique de quelle façon des expériences sociales à grande échelle faisant appel à une assignation aléatoire, comme le Projet d'autosuffisance du Canada, permettent d'aborder d'importantes questions sociologiques et développementales. Nous expliquons d'abord comment la répartition aléatoire résout le problème de biais qui se retrouve dans la plupart des recherches fondées sur des enquêtes. Nous passons ensuite en revue les méthodes et…
Early Childhood Care and Education: Effects on Ethnic and Racial Gaps in School Readiness
The authors examine black, white, and Hispanic children's differing experiences in early childhood care and education and explore links between these experiences and racial and ethnic gaps in school readiness. Children who attend center care or preschool programs enter school more ready to learn, but both the share of children enrolled in these programs and the quality of care they receive differ by race and ethnicity. Black children are more lik…
Can Family Socioeconomic Resources Account for Racial and Ethnic Test Score Gaps
This article considers whether the disparate socioeconomic circumstances of families in which white, black, and Hispanic children grow up account for the racial and ethnic gaps in school readiness among American preschoolers. It first reviews why family socioeconomic resources might matter for children's school readiness. The authors concentrate on four key components of parent socioeconomic status that are particularly relevant for children's we…
Employment and the Risk of Domestic Abuse Among Low-Income Women
This paper uses data from 2 randomized evaluations of welfare-to-work programs-the Minnesota Family Investment Program and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies-to estimate the effect of employment on domestic abuse among low-income single mothers. Unique to our analysis is the application of a 2-stage least squares method, in which random assignment enables us to control for omitted characteristics that might otherwise confound t…
The role of family socioeconomic resources in the black–white test score gap among young children
The persistence of preschool effects: Do subsequent classroom experiences matter
Preschool and School Readiness of Children of Immigrants
Objective. In this article, we use data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Kindergarten Cohort to analyze the links between preschool attendance and the school readiness of children of immigrants. Methods. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Kindergarten Cohort, we estimate multivariate regression models for the effects of preschool on school readiness for children of immigrants and children of natives. Results. We f…
Does prekindergarten improve school preparation and performance?
Family economic well-being following the 1996 welfare reform: Trend data from five non-experimental panel studies
How are children and families faring a decade after welfare reform? Evidence from five non-experimental panel studies
Public Funding and Enrollment in Formal Child Care in the 1990s
Although the share of all 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children enrolled in center‐based care and early education has grown steadily in recent decades, rates of enrollment for children from low‐income families still lag behind those for children from families with high incomes. During the 1990s, growing public funding for compensatory preschool education and means‐tested child‐care assistance had the potential to increase the availability of free or low‐cos…
School readiness and later achievement
Using 6 longitudinal data sets, the authors estimate links between three key elements of school readiness--school-entry academic, attention, and socioemotional skills--and later school reading and math achievement. In an effort to isolate the effects of these school-entry skills, the authors ensured that most of their regression models control for cognitive, attention, and socioemotional skills measured prior to school entry, as well as a host of…
Maternal education and children's academic achievement during middle childhood
Despite much evidence that links mothers' educational attainment to children's academic outcomes, studies have not established whether increases in mothers' education will improve their children's academic achievement. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on children between the ages of 6 and 12, this study examined whether increases in mothers' educational attainment are associated with changes in children's academic achieve…
From statistical associations to causation: What developmentalists can learn from instrumental variables techniques coupled with experimental data
In this article, the authors aim to make accessible the careful application of a method called instrumental variables (IV). Under the right analytic conditions, IV is one promising strategy for answering questions about the causal nature of associations and, in so doing, can advance developmental theory. The authors build on prior work combining the analytic approach of IV with the strengths of random assignment design, whether the experiment is …
Increases in Maternal Education and Young Children's Language Skills
Maternal education is a strong correlate of children’s language, cognitive, and academic development. In most prior research, mothers’ education has been treated as a fixed characteristic, yet many mothers, particularly economically and educationally disadvantaged mothers, attend school after the birth of their children. In the present study, we use longitudinal data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early…
Family Structure States and Transitions: Associations With Children's Well-Being During Middle Childhood
Using longitudinal data from the Maternal and Child Supplement of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,862) and Hierarchical Linear Models, we estimated associations of family structure states and transitions with children's achievement and behavior trajectories during middle childhood. Results suggest that residing in a single-mother family was associated with small increases in behavior problems and decreases in achievement and that…
Preschool-to-third grade programs and practices: A review of research
Early education: Progress and promise for children from low-income families
Low-Income Fathers' Influence on Children
This article examines what we know about how low-income fathers matter for children. The authors first provide a theoretical background about how parents generally (and fathers more specifically) are expected to influence children's development and well-being. The authors note the importance of considering differences across children's age, gender, and race/ethnicity; and they identify key methodological challenges in this area. Then, they summar…
Socioeconomic status and cognitive functioning: Moving from correlation to causation
A growing body of cognitive research uses sophisticated behavioral and neuroimaging measurements to demonstrate associations between family socioeconomic status (SES) and specific cognitive functions. We argue for the value in these kinds of studies of increased sophistication in the measurement and modeling of SES. With regard to measurement, SES combines several components, each of which represents distinct resources that might benefit children…
Psychology (46 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (39 works) · Developmental psychology (31 works) · Economics (30 works) · Medicine (29 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Economic growth (20 works) · Parental Involvement in Education (19 works) · Demographic economics (17 works) · Political science (17 works)