Contact: Dr. Beck A. Taylor, Dean & Professor of Economics, 205-726-2364, btaylor@samford.edu

Income and children's behavioral problems linked

In a recently published paper in Developmental Psychology, Dr. Beck A. Taylor, Dean and Professor of Economics at Samford Business, and his colleagues from Boston College and Harvard University, are among the first researchers to document links between family income and children's social-emotional health.

"Economists, psychologists, and social policy makers are extremely interested in how poverty might impact early childhood development, including cognitive, language, and behavioral outcomes," says Taylor, who has been researching issues pertaining to poverty and child development for years. "Ours in among the first scientific evidence that points to a clear relationship between changes in income within families and corresponding and contemporaneous changes in their children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors," adds Taylor.

Taylor and his colleagues, Drs. Eric Dearing (Assistant Professor at BC) and Kathleen McCartney (Dean and Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education), are among a handful of social scientists who are attempting to go beyond the "poverty is bad" motif in much of the existing research. Rather, Taylor and his colleagues are engaged in a systematic and fruitful research collaboration that documents exactly how poverty negatively impacts young persons. Their previous research efforts have garnered much attention and acclaim, published in journals such as Journal of Human Resources, American Journal of Public Health, and Child Development.