Elsevier

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 112, July 2014, Pages 30-38
Social Science & Medicine

Impacts of Child Development Accounts on maternal depressive symptoms: Evidence from a randomized statewide policy experiment

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.04.023Get rights and content

Highlights

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    The study tests effects of Child Development Accounts on maternal depressive symptoms.

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    CES-D scores were significantly lower for treatment mothers than for control mothers.

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    Impacts of CDAs are partially mediated through child's social–emotional development.

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    As an economic intervention for children, CDAs may improve parents' psychological well-being.

Abstract

This study examines the impact of Child Development Accounts (CDAs)—asset-building accounts created for children at birth—on the depressive symptoms of mothers in a statewide randomized experiment conducted in the United States. The experiment identified the primary caregivers of children born in Oklahoma during 2007, and 2704 of the caregivers completed a baseline interview before random assignment to the treatment (n = 1358) or the control group (n = 1346). To treatment participants, the experiment offered CDAs built on the existing Oklahoma 529 College Savings Plan. The baseline and follow-up surveys measured the participants' depressive symptoms with a shortened version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). In models that control for baseline CES-D scores, the mean follow-up score of treatment mothers is .17 lower than that of control mothers (p < .05). Findings suggest that CDAs have a greater impact among subsamples that reported lower income or lower education. Although designed as an economic intervention for children, CDAs may improve parents' psychological well-being. Findings also suggest that CDAs' impacts on maternal depressive symptoms may be partially mediated through children's social–emotional development.

Section snippets

Methods

The purpose of the SEED OK experiment is to test a universal policy of asset building that begins at birth. The experiment aims to determine whether CDAs can be extended successfully to the full population, eventually promote asset accumulation among parents and children, and improve attitudes and behaviors of parents and children.

The experiment's protocol was approved by the institutional review boards of all participating organizations, and all participants in the experiment provided informed

Baseline characteristics

Table 1 presents the baseline demographic characteristics of SEED OK mothers and children. We report both unweighted and weighted information. The baseline characteristics of the treatment and control groups do not differ significantly. This indicates that the random assignment generated two comparable groups. The weighted average age of SEED OK mothers was 26 years. About 60% were married, less than 50% had at least some college education, and less than half (approximately 46%) were employed.

Discussion

Results presented above indicate that the four-item CES-D score from the follow-up survey was significantly lower for treatment mothers than for control mothers. The intervention appears to have a greater impact in disadvantaged subsamples, especially the groups comprised of mothers with low income and low education. The size of SEED OK's effect on maternal depressive symptoms is .11 for the whole sample and about .15 for the subsamples (Table 2).

An effect size of less than .20 is often

Acknowledgments

Support for SEED for Oklahoma Kids comes from the Ford Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. We especially value our partnership with the State of Oklahoma: Ken Miller, State Treasurer; Scott Meacham, former State Treasurer; Tim Allen, Deputy Treasurer for Communications and Program Administration; and James Wilbanks, former Director of Revenue and Fiscal Policy. We appreciate the contributions of staff at RTI International, especially those of Ellen Marks and Bryan Rhodes. The

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