Publication: Joint Roles of Parenting and Nutritional Status for Child Development: Evidence from Rural Cambodia
Loading...
Files in English
2,259 downloads
Published
2019-05-31
ISSN
1467-7687
Date
2019-07-12
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Substantial work has demonstrated that early nutrition and home environments, including the degree to which children receive cognitive stimulation and emotional support from parents, play a profound role in influencing early childhood development. Yet, less work has documented the joint influences of parenting and nutritional status on child development among children in the preschool years living in low‐income countries. Using panel data from 2016 to 2017 on the parenting, nutritional status, and early developmental outcomes (executive function, language, early numeracy, and socioemotional problems) of 6,508 Cambodian children ages 3–5 years, our findings demonstrate that inequities in early development associated with family wealth are evident at age 3 and increase among children ages 4 and 5 years. Using hierarchical regression analysis, a significant share of these inequalities is explained by differences in parenting and early nutritional status, measured by stunting. Better‐educated parents engage in more stimulating and supportive parenting practices. However, the positive association between parenting and language and early numeracy outcomes is 35–54% stronger for non‐stunted children, and parental activities explain only about 8–14% of the cognitive gap between the lowest and highest wealth quintiles. The results highlight the need for additional research outlining interactions between environmental factors that link family wealth and child development. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions. https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Authors/licensing/self-archiving.html
Link to Data Set
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Joint Effects of Parenting and Nutrition Status on Child Development(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-07)Substantial work has demonstrated that early nutrition and home environments, including the degree to which children receive cognitive stimulation and emotional support from parents, play a profound role in influencing early childhood development. Yet, less work has documented the joint influences of parenting and nutrition status on child development among children in the preschool years living in low-income countries. Using panel data on parenting, nutrition status, and early developmental outcomes of about 7,000 Cambodian preschool-age children, this paper demonstrates that inequities in early development associated with family wealth are evident at the start of preschool and increase over time. A significant share of these inequalities can be explained by differences in parental stimulation and early nutrition status. Better educated parents engage in better parental activities that stimulate children's development. However, the positive association between parental activities and child outcomes is particularly strong for non-stunted children, and parental activities can only explain about 8-14 percent of the cognitive gap between the lowest and highest wealth quintiles. The results highlight the need for integrated interventions that address both parenting and early nutrition, also suggesting that parenting interventions for the most disadvantaged families should be carefully designed and evaluated to ensure maximum effectiveness.Publication Impact Evaluation of Three Types of Early Childhood Development Interventions in Cambodia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-07)Scaling up early childhood development services has the potential to increase children's cognitive and socio-emotional development and promote school readiness in a large segment of the population. This study used a randomized controlled trial approach to evaluate three scaled-up programs designed to widen access to early childhood development services: formal preschools, community preschools, and home-based services. The impacts of all three programs fell short of expectations because of two key flaws in how they were scaled up. First, implementation did not receive due attention; as a result, school facilities were not completed as planned, community-based programs were not always established, and low, irregular stipends created difficulties in hiring and retaining teachers. Second, the services that were available were not promoted and thus not used as widely as anticipated. The results imply that the quality of programs supplied is critical, as is attention to the demand side of the problem. The finding that these programs fell short of expectations does not mean that interventions such as these are ineffective. Rather, it indicates that quality and demand require careful attention in attempts to scale up early childhood development interventions, and any problems should be addressed prior to evaluating effectiveness.Publication Examining Early Child Development in Low-Income Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-04-03)The primary purpose of this toolkit is to provide a resource for researchers from various disciplines interested in planning and evaluating programs or interventions aimed at improving the health and development of infants and young children. The toolkit aims to: provide an overview of issues affecting early development and its measurement; discuss the types of tests typically used with children under five years; provide guidelines for selecting and adapting tests for use in developing countries, and make recommendations for planning successful assessment strategies. The toolkit focuses on children who have not yet entered school, and are thus under six years old. The primary reason we are focusing on this age group is that during the first five years of life, children's language, early understanding of mathematics and reading, and self-control emerge. The extent to which children master these skills during this critical period has implications for success in school (Lerner, 1998), and thus we wanted to focus on children in this pre-school period. The toolkit is essential at this time for the following reasons: children in developing countries are growing up at a disadvantage; assessments of children must expand to include a wider range of outcomes; and no such toolkit exists as present.Publication China Early Child Development : Early Childhood Education in Yunnan(Washington, DC, 2013-11-18)Yunnan is a medium-sized and relatively poor Chinese province on the southwestern border of China. In 2012, the Yunnan department of education formally requested Bank support in conducting a review of early childhood education policies and programs in order to gain an in-depth and evidence-based understanding of the challenges the province faces in expanding early childhood education-in particular to rural and mountainous regions. The Bank's China education team embarked on raising funds, designing and implementing a rather elaborate research agenda around early childhood education. The goal was to investigate key challenges, and to propose policy interventions for expanding the Early Child Development (ECD) coverage in rural Yunnan. This report presents the findings from the background studies, and draws potential policy implications for improving the access to and quality of preschool education in Yunnan province. China has now almost achieved universal 9-year basic education. Over the last decade, the country has devoted increasing attention to policy development in early childhood education. Even though China does not yet have a specific early childhood education law, it has established a rather elaborate set of guidelines and regulations pertaining to early childhood education. Early childhood education has expanded significantly within the last few years. There are two main types of preschool programs for 3-6 year olds including: a regular 3-year program which is called kindergarten, and a one-year program attached usually to primary schools. The rapid growth of preschool teacher supply has contributed to the drop in pupil-teacher ratios across the nation. In Yunnan in particular, the ratio has decreased from approximately 30 to 20 in recent years. However, urban areas still enjoy a more favorable pupil-teacher ratio, as well as a higher proportion of qualified teachers compared to rural areas. Rural areas account for 50 percent of total preschool enrollment, but only 22 percent of all trained teachers serve in rural areas.Publication Protecting Child Nutritional Status in the Aftermath of a Financial Crisis : Evidence from Indonesia(2010-11-01)This paper exploits heterogeneity in program exposure to evaluate the effectiveness of a supplementary feeding program implemented in the wake of the 1997-1998 economic crises in Indonesia. The explicit aim of the program was to protect the nutritional status of infants and young children from adverse effects of the crisis. The use of heterogeneity in program exposure has several advantages for identifying the impact of the program. First, the analysis avoids the strong assumption that all targeted children experienced homogenous exposure to the program, and facilitates identification in a setting in which nearly all communities experienced some exposure. Second, by exploiting child age and program eligibility rules, the paper estimates models with community fixed effects and thus avoid bias introduced as a result of endogenous program placement. The analysis finds that the program improved the nutritional status of children 12 to 24 months of age at the time of the survey in 2000, and helped to avoid problems of severe malnutrition among young children.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Social Cohesion and Forced Displacement(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022)This report presents new evidence from 26 background studies on forced displacement and social cohesion to expand the current knowledge base on how to prevent social conflict and promote social cohesion in forced displacement contexts. The background studies are geographically and methodologically diverse. They examine social cohesion in a variety of low-, middle-, and high-income countries across Africa, Asia, Central, and South America, and Europe. Building on this new evidence, the report provides lessons on how development investments and policies can reduce inequalities, alleviate social tensions, and promote social cohesion between and within displaced populations and host communities. Overall, the findings demonstrate that, while displacement can exacerbate existing inequalities and create new inequalities and the potential for conflict, especially in areas with strained services and limited economic opportunities, inclusive policies and development investments can effectively mitigate the negative effects of displacement and promote social cohesion.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication Timor-Leste Social Protection Review(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-04-01)Since it became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on May 20, 2002, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste has demonstrated commendable leadership in rebuilding the country’s economy with reasonably steady degrees of poverty reduction. The nation’s unwavering commitment to social protection is reflected in a national system providing many benefits and services. These programs included pensions for veterans, the elderly, and the disabled and a conditional cash transfer program targeting vulnerable households with children. Other benefits and services were introduced in due course, such as disaster recovery programs, child protection services, emergency support to individuals and vulnerable families, support services to gender-based and domestic violence victims, and support to prisoners. In 2016, a national contributory social security general scheme was launched, mandatory for employed workers and voluntary for self-employed and independent workers. This report presents an in-depth analysis of Timor-Leste’s social protection system, which builds on the World Bank’s long-standing analytical and advisory support for the Ministry of Social Solidarity and Inclusion. Envisioned as inputs to Timor-Leste’s National Strategy for Social Protection, this report also serves as a deep-dive into the recently launched Timor-Leste Public Expenditure Review, and it does so by providing extensive analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of Timor-Leste ’ss social protection spending. The analysis also looks into the existing programs' coverage, adequacy, and delivery mechanisms as the basis for policy recommendations that the Government of Timor-Leste could consider in implementing the country’s first National Strategy for Social Protection.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.