Browsing by Author "Telias, Amanda"

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    A mediation analysis to disentangle relations between maternal education and early child development
    (2022) Telias, Amanda; Narea, Marigen; Abufhele, Alejandra
    Maternal education is associated with early child outcomes. However, the several mechanisms that may explain this relationship remain underexplored. Using data from 1,097 children aged 12-15 months in Chile, we estimate the maternal education gap across child cognitive and language outcomes. Following a bioecological perspective, we explore potential pathways by which maternal education might influence child development, such as child characteristics, the quantity and quality of mother-child interactions, and the availability of home stimulation. We found an average maternal education gap between children with mothers with the lowest and the highest educational levels of 0.36, 0.31, and 0.25 standard deviation in child cognition, expressive language, and receptive language, respectively. The mediational analysis showed that maternal stress and depression and the quality of the home environment mediated the relation between maternal education and child language and cognitive development.
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    Socioeconomic gradients in child development: Evidence from a Chilean longitudinal study 2010-2017
    (2022) Abufhele, Alejandra; Contreras, Dante; Puentes, Esteban; Telias, Amanda; Valdebenito, Natalia
    Empirical evidence shows that lack of resources during infancy and the process of accumulating disadvantages throughout childhood have important consequences for cognitive and socio-emotional development. This paper examines socioeconomic gradients across language and socio-emotional measures. Using longitudinal data from 7-year, three-wave panel data, we study the patterns of socioeconomic status and child development in Chile and estimate how much of the wealth gap can be explained by different mediators like maternal educational and skills, child attendance of preschool and school, possession of books, or domestic violence indicators. We show that there are strong associations between household wealth and child development, and that, as the child grows, the gap between the most extreme quintiles of the distribution, both in cognitive and socio-emotional skills, persists but decreases in magnitude. Taking advantage of the longitudinal nature of the data, we calculate a permanent skill for each child and each skill dimension in this 7-year period. The analysis for the permanent component shows that wealth gaps are important to determine language, but not socio-emotional skills, and that the gap is larger for girls than for boys in the early childhood period. While mediators account for some of the associations, there is still a large socioeconomic gap that persists in receptive language among children. The most important factors that mediate the wealth gaps are inherited from maternal characteristics. By understanding the dynamism of social and cognitive vulnerability experienced during childhood and employing longitudinal data and methods, this study contributes to and extends the existing literature on socioeconomic gaps and child development in the Latin American context.
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    The Covid-19 Pandemic and Maternal Mental Health: A Longitudinal Study of Chilean and Foreign-Born Mothers
    (2022) Abufhele, Alejandra; Narea, Marigen; Telias, Amanda
    Objectives: We explore the effects of the pandemic on stress, depressive symptoms and parenting practices of mothers with children aged between 24- and 30-months, residents in Santiago, Chile, and the differences between foreign-born and native-born mothers.Methods: Using data from the longitudinal project Mil Primeros Dias and lagged-dependent models, we analyzed parental stress, depressive symptoms and parenting practices for native-born and foreign-born mothers. Lagged-dependent model allows us to take advantage of the longitudinal data by controlling for the previous score and baseline individual characteristics.Results: After 8 months of the pandemic, mothers of young children have more depressive symptoms, are more stressed, and show more hostility towards their children. Foreign-born mothers had 0.29 and 0.22 standard deviations (SD) more than native-born mothers in the parental distress and difficult child scales from the Parental Stress Index (PSI), respectively, and 0.17 SD more in the hostile-reactive parental behavior dimension.Conclusion: Findings suggest the need to implement policies and programs that prevent mental health deterioration for mothers, especially migrant mothers, to improve women's psychological condition and child wellness.
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    The Effect of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Maternal Mental Health and Parenting Practices Moderated by Urban Green Space
    (SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2022) Narea, Marigen; Asahi, Kenzo; Abufhele, Alejandra; Telias, Amanda; Gildemeister, Damian; Alarcon, Samanta; CEDEUS (Chile)
    Stress generates difficulties in parenting, which affects child development. We aimed to understand the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on maternal mental health and parenting practices. We also explored to what extent green space is a protective factor in the aforementioned relationship. We explored heterogeneous lockdown effects using longitudinal georeferenced data for 985 families (mothers and 24- to 30-month-olds) and exploiting localized lockdowns in Chile. Controlling for observed and unobserved fixed characteristics, on average, we did not find an association between lockdown duration and maternal mental health or parenting practices. However, the previous nonsignificant association is heterogeneous across access to green space. Although lockdown duration increased dysfunctional interactions with children for mothers with little access to green space, we did not see the previous effect on mothers who live close to green space. Mothers who do not comply with the lockdown mandate are the ones who drive this heterogeneous effect.