Understanding the Early Years - Early Childhood Development in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan - April 2002

IV. How Family Background Affects Children's Readiness for School

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In this section, information about the relationship between family background and children's outcomes is presented, and the family background of the children in Prince Albert is described. The relationship between family background and children's outcomes is not straightforward. An important goal of Understanding the Early Years is to distinguish among the effects of family background, and those associated with family processes and community factors on children's outcomes.

All three sets of contributing factors were measured. First, information on eight characteristics of family background are presented. In an earlier study of children's development, based on the national sample of children who participated in the first cycle of the NLSCY, these family background characteristics were significantly related to a range of children's developmental outcomes. The values, calculated from the eight family characteristics, are:

• Family income (in $10,000 units): considered to be low if less than $25,000.
• Mother's level of education: considered to be low if the mother did not complete high school.
• Father's level of education: considered to be low if the father did not complete high school.
• Mother's employment status: considered not working outside the home if the mother worked fewer than 25 weeks during the past year.
• Father's employment status: considered not working outside the home if the father worked fewer than 25 weeks during the past year.
• Single-parent family: only one parent or guardian living at home
• Number of brothers and sisters: this is a simple count of the number of siblings living at home.

Figures 3-1 and 3-2 show the relative levels of income, education, employment, and single-parenthood for families in the community, as well as provincial and national levels. These findings are consistent with the findings presented in the first section, which characterized this community as relatively disadvantaged in socio-economic terms. For example, about 35% of families were considered low-income, compared to about 24% in Saskatchewan, and 22% in Canada overall.

More children's mothers had completed high school (74.2%) than fathers (69.7%) in Prince Albert. However, compared to both provincial and national averages, parents in this area had relatively low levels of education. Also, fewer mothers than fathers worked outside the home.

Unemployment levels are slightly higher than provincial and national averages for both mothers and fathers in this area. Almost 42% of mothers, and almost 13% of fathers, did not work outside the home. Some 34% of families are of Aboriginal origin, and about 28% of families were headed by a single parent (NLSCY-CS for Prince Albert, 1999, cycle 3 data).

Figure 3.1 - Family Income and Parent's Education

Source: NLSCY for PEI (1999-2000) and national NLSCY (cycle 3).

Figure 3.2 - Parents' Employment and Marital Status

Source: NLSCY for PEI (1999-2000) and national NLSCY (cycle 3).

It is likely that the number of children living in low-income, single-parent households is fairly high. Prince Albert children fare well overall on the outcomes measured. This finding contradicts what many might expect, if they assume that socio-economic and demographic factors alone explain why some children are better prepared in their cognitive and behavioural skills when they enter school.

A. The Effects of Family Background Factors on Readiness

The analysis focussed on the factors contributing to whether or not a child had significantly low scores in one of the three developmental domains: the cognitive domain, the behavioural domain, and physical health and well-being.

A child was considered "ready" in the cognitive domain if he or she did not have a low score (e.g., below the 10% threshold) on the Receptive Language Test, the Developmental Assessment (Who Am I?), or on the two cognitive domains of the Early Development Instrument.

Similarly, a child was considered ready to learn in the behavioural domain if he or she did not have a low score on the behaviour scale, or on either of the two domains of the EDI pertaining to behaviour, and did not have any one of the four behaviour problems.

A child was considered ready to learn in the physical health domain if he or she scored above the low-score threshold on the Physical Health and Well-being domain of the EDI.

For each of the family background factors, the odds-ratio associated with whether a child was ready in these three domains were estimated (see Table 3-1) using the sample of children from all of the first five UEY communities. In other words, the results indicated in Table 3-1 are not specific to Prince Albert.

Inset 6 — Odds-ratios

Odds-ratios denote the ratio of the odds of an event occurring after a one-unit change in the independent variable, compared with what it had been previously, if all other independent variables in the model are held constant.

For example, suppose the outcome variable of interest was whether a child repeated Grade 1. If the odds ratio for mother's education were .95, it would indicate that the odds of a child repeating a grade, if his or her mother had 13 years of education, is only 95% as large as the odds for a child whose mother had completed 12 years of education (or 12 years compared with 11 years, etc.). Thus, in this example, increasing levels of maternal education reduce the odds of a child repeating Grade

1. When an odds-ratio is greater than 1.0, it indicates that the odds of experiencing the outcome (e.g., repeating Grade 1) are greater with increasing levels of the factor being considered.

Table 3.1 —The Relationship Between a Child's Readiness to Learn and Family Background

Children's Outcomes
	Cognitive	Behavioural	Physical Health & Well-being
Family Income ($10,000 units)	1.16	1.11	1.02
Mother's Education (years)	1.10	1.02	1.10
Father's Education (years)	1.04	0.99	1.10
Mother Not Working Outside Home	0.98	1.15	1.11
Father Not Working Outside Home	1.22	1.48	1.17
Single Parent Family	0.98	0.96	0.70
Number of Brothers and Sisters	0.90	0.91	0.81
Source: NLSCY in relation to 3 EDI domains for the first five UEY communities, 1999-2000.
Note: Figures in blue text are statistically significant at p<.10.

The results indicate that family income and the educational level of the mother are strong determinants of cognitive development.

For example, the odds of being ready to learn for a child living in a family with an income of $40,000 is about 16% greater than a child who had similar background characteristics, but had a family income of $30,000.

Similarly, each additional year of education of a child's mother increases the odds of being ready by about 10%. In contrast, children with more siblings were more likely to have a low score on at least one of the cognitive measures. Each additional brother or sister decreases the odds of being ready to learn by about 10%.

The results for the behavioural domain are similar. Family income and small family size are protective factors; that is, they increase the likelihood that a child will not have a behaviour problem upon entry to school. However, the mother's level of education was not statistically significant. The results also indicate that children whose fathers are unemployed were more likely to be ready for school. This finding is somewhat surprising; however, it may be that fathers who are unemployed are more likely to spend time engaged with their children in activities which have a positive effect on their behaviour.

With respect to physical health and well-being, two factors emerged as statistically significant: mother's education and number of siblings. Children were less likely to have experienced problems in this domain if their mothers had a high level of education, and if they had relatively few brothers and sisters.

Given the relationship between children's outcomes in these domains with family income and maternal education, and the relatively low income and levels of education of the families in Prince Albert, children are performing relatively well in this community. It suggests that there may be many other aspects of family and community life that have influenced children's outcomes. We examine theses factors in the next section.

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