The Impact of Family Income as a Child on the Education Level the Child Wishes to Complete

Abstract

            The disparities faced by Americans are extensive and are ultimately because of or lead to finances. This study was conducted to see if there was a correlation between family income throughout childhood and the education level that child wishes to achieve. A voluntary survey was taken in order to receive participant answers to analyze the income and education levels. After the data was analyzed there was found to be a weak positive correlation between the two. This concludes that the family income level could be used to predict the education level a child will wish to achieve when they are older.

Introduction

            Being at SMU has opened my eyes to the differences in childhoods that many people experience. The diversity rate of SMU is extremely low, and it is painfully obvious when interacting with the different students. Most of the students here at SMU come from very affluent families and have a hard time understanding those who do not. There are very few students who experience a lot of adversity or grew up in low-income families. This boundary between the students has been extremely interesting to witness as it can make it hard for people to coexist. On one hand, you have students who are extremely naive and just do as they please when they want and on the other hand you have students who are working full time as well as going to school full time just to be able to go to school or live. This is not just a thing at SMU but throughout the country and even the world. As many of us know there is a major difference in the childhood of a minority in the childhood of someone who is a part of the majority. Even if the child part of the majority experienced adversity as a child it was not because of the same reasons as the child who was a minority. There are many disparities in how certain groups of people in the US are treated. Since 2020 race has been an extremely big topic, especially in terms of the Police Department. Police brutality has awakened many people to the racial issues that we have in the US. When looking at the racial issues in the nation we noticed that it is more than just within our justice system but in almost every single system we have in place.

There are two areas that I wanted to specifically look at when thinking about the disparities space in this country. Those two areas are income and education. As we all know greater access to income typically means more opportunities so I figured it would be the same in terms of education. Someone growing up in a low-income household is more likely to be a first-generation college student and that oftentimes deters kids from going to college. Growing up in a low-income household could also mean that they went to a low-income school district that did not have very good resources or a high-quality education which can also be discouraging in deciding to continue your education. Someone who did have access to more resources or money throughout their grade school years seems to typically be more likely to go to college as a default. They are usually not 1st Generation so the support and knowledge in the application and decision process is already there, and they are not alone in making these decisions.

I wanted to see if a higher income as a child is correlated to a higher education level as an adult. Even after just four years of Undergrad, is it more likely for someone who grew up with money to continue their education over someone who did not? Income level and Education are very straightforward answers but when looking at this money is not as black and white as we perceive it to be. There are a lot of questions that come to mind when thinking about the household income a child's family has. For example, a family could be considered middle class with two incomes, but they might have a lot of people to support in their household or could be paying off a lot of debts. On paper, they would be middle class but, the money that they have to spend on their children educationally, recreationally, or physically could only be considered low income. In contrast, a family could be middle class but has the monetary support from many generations of family members and could put the money that they have to spend on or for their children up there with children of higher-class families.

Literature Review

While I was searching for previous studies done in relation to income as a child and education level, I could not find one like the one I conducted. There were other studies and articles that could help predict the answer to my research question, but not give the direct answer. One of the most useful articles I found, talked about how important outside of the classroom experiences benefited a child. Unfortunately, experiences like this can usually not be afforded by children in low-income households. There was a study conducted in California that showed the importance of these expenditures. It also highlighted the lack of resources and how it impacts those differently than the children who had access to resources (McCroskey et al, 2004, p. 171).

A child’s creative expressiveness can also predict their educational achievement (Toivainen, 2021, p.1407). This also goes back into access to resources as a child. It is possible for a child to express creativeness without access to a lot of resources, but a child who does can express it easier and to a much larger extent. If a child’s creativeness is being held back, imagine what else is being held back for them academically. Resources is a very important factor when talking about educational achievements.

The disparities different groups of children face are extensive but often all caused by lack of resources and money. According to Kenneth Dodge, COVID-19 has played a big part in the current struggles of families and children, especially minorities. Although my study is not focused on the current children, if I did my study in ten years when the current children are of college age, COVID-19 would be a reason for a lot of low-income families. Another outlook on how income plays into your education level is how your parents taught you to handle your money. Some adolescents may choose to not go to college, so they do not go into debt over it or because they do not have the money to pay it out of pocket. The y may have seen their parents struggle and did not want to be like them. The group of people at higher risk of being worse off financially are low-income, non-educated, minorities (Sinha et al, 2018, p. 183). These groups of people are also the least likely to further their education in any way. Another big factor when deciding to go to college is the support system you have. A study showed that a child who had more support and were encouraged to be motivated and self-determined from their parents chose to go to college at higher rates (Pedersen, 2017, p. 2597). Going to college is a tough decision to make, especially for someone who does not have any support. The reason could come from a lot of factors but in most cases if a parent must work to make ends meet financially, they are not very supportive of their children since they always have to work. In connection to this study is one about allowance as a child. This study gave a broader approach to the topic as it was not just based in the U.S. but many different countries. Receiving allowance as a child may seem like a small thing to most people but is quite the privilege. This could have been a factor in determining income level and childhood of my participants. Although the study showed that “family income, parental education, and household size” had very little influence on allowance, it can factor into the lack of resources aspect of my study (Collins & Odders-White, 2021, p. 541).

A study I found that is far from my research question but was an interesting read in relation to childhoods was one about cocaine-abusing parents. This study shows the negative psychological effect on a child whose custodial parent was a cocaine abuser (Lewis et al, 2005, p. 413). These kids face an adversity that I did not account for in my study. They also lack resources due to this drug abuse because they are not getting the attention they need from their parents and their money is going to drugs instead of their children. This puts the different childhoods experienced in a different perspective. A problem with a voluntary study like mine is that these responses could be untruthful. A study was done that shows someone who is “reputationally motivated” is “more likely to lie to cover up their failures” (Good & Shaw, 2022, p. 431). Although the survey is anonymous, some people are embarrassed by the amount of education they wish to or not wish to receive, especially if they feel their choice is wrong or against what is accepted by society.

Methods

            This was a voluntary study that participants were given the option to complete or not complete. The first group of possible participants were students taking research methods of Psychology at Southern Methodist University at 10 AM. They had access to an Excel sheet where they chose which studies, they wanted to participate in. The second group of possible participants were friends and family of mine. I posted the link to my social media accounts and asked anybody of college age, between 18 and 22, to complete the survey if they would like. The conditions of the study were the participant had to at least be 18 years of age and of typical undergraduate college years. They then filled out the survey where the first page was a consent form from the Department of Psychology at Southern Methodist University. There was a total of 28 participants from both groups.

Most of the participants identified as white while the other portion identified as African American, Hispanic, and Asian. The materials for the study were very limited all the participants needed was access to the link on some technological device and the responses were recorded and analyzed on a computer, as this was a voluntary online survey. I utilized an online self-report survey to determine how family income impacts how much education one wishes to obtain as an adult. I will be asking a variety of questions about the participant's demographic as well as questions about their childhood, their family their education, and lastly, the highest level of Education they wish to achieve. These questions will give me a good understanding of the income level of their family while they were a child as well as their dream education level.

My independent variable was family income as a child and my dependent variable was how much education one wishes to obtain as an adult. Lower class income will be defined as less than $27,007 and scored as a one on a scale of one to three. Middle class will be defined as less than $89,744 and more than $55,001 and scored as a two on a scale of one to three. The upper class will be defined as greater than $149,132 and scaled as a three on a scale of one to three. In between these ranges will be lower-middle class and upper-middle class. This middle range, monetarily, will be eliminated once the responses are analyzed based on the responses to the childhood questions. Education levels will be determined by how many degrees one wishes to obtain. They will be scored on a number scale of zero to ten. Zero will represent no college, two will represent an associate's degree, Four will represent a bachelor's degree, six will represent a master's degree, and ten will represent a doctoral degree.

Results

            This study examined if one’s family income while they were a child determined how much schooling they would complete. The responses were more diverse than I was expecting with the demographics of my study. The participants’ childhoods varied and gave a lot of insight into their different childhood experiences. There was a weak positive correlation between the score on income (M= 2.36, SD= .678), and education (M=6, SD= 3.174), r(27)= .344, p= .02. The more money one had access to as a child, weakly shows, the more likely they would want to finish more years of school. The mean income range for this group of participants was around the middle class and did not deviate much, while the mean education level wished to achieve was a master’s degree and deviated a lot. The deviation in education level further emphasizes the weak correlation between the two variables.

Discussion

My hypothesis was that the income one’s family had as a child had an impact on how many years of school one would want to finish. The results of this study weakly support my hypothesis. Results for both income level and education were mostly as expected, the higher the income the more years of schooling, although the correlation is not strong. This exact study has not previously been done but other studies have suggested my hypothesis may be true. **

These results are important because they further show that low-income children are less likely to continue their education. Their reasons may vary from not having enough resources to being unable to leave their family. We should use this study as evidence for the fact that we should find more ways to help children who come from low-income households, especially if they are interested in furthering their education. Possible limitations in my study are the survey questions’ depth and that the level of education wished to achieve may not be what is actually achieved.  The format and depth of the questions may not have been enough to fully gain an understanding of how a child lived monetarily creating limitations. There are many factors that go into furthering your education and after the first four years of undergraduate school being a student can get harder to manage. There are plenty of people who want to get a doctorate degree but cannot, so measuring the education level wish to obtain instead of obtaining it can cause limitations to the study. Ideally, I would want to come back to this study and measure how many years of school the participants finished compared to their family income as a child and how many years of school they wanted to complete. Outside of this specific study, I would want to study if the district participants were in for grade has any correlation to how much education they complete throughout their lives. For example, a study that answers the question: are children who were enrolled in low-income school districts only likely to finish high school or very little college? If I were to design his study in a different way, I would give the participants a shorter survey and then an academic test designed to determine their academic level.

References

Collins, J. M., & Odders-White, E. (2021). Allowances: Incidence in the US and Relationship to Financial Capability in Young Adulthood. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 42(3), 533–544. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-020-09748-y

Dodge, K. A. (2022). Presidential Address: Forging a developmental science mission to improve population outcomes and eliminate disparities for young children. Child Development, 93(2), 313–325. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13732

Good, K., & Shaw, A. (2022). Being versus appearing smart: Children’s developing intuitions about how reputational motives guide behavior. Child Development, 93(2), 418–436. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13711

Lewis, M. W., & Petry, N. M. (2005). Relationship between Custodial Status and Psychosocial Problems among Cocaine-Abusing Parents Initiating Substance Abuse Treatment. The American Journal on Addictions, 14(5), 403–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/10550490500247008

McCroskey, J., Picus, L. O., Yoo, J., Marsenich, L., & Robillard, E. (2004). Show Me the Money: Estimating Public Expenditures to Improve Outcomes for Children, Families, and Communities. Children & Schools, 26(3), 165–173. https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/26.3.165

Pedersen, D. E. (2017). Parental Autonomy Support and College Student Academic Outcomes. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26(9), 2589–2601. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0750-4

Sinha, G., Tan, K., & Zhan, M. (2018). Patterns of financial attributes and behaviors of emerging adults in the United States. Children and Youth Services Review, 93, 178–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.07.023

Toivainen, T., Madrid‐Valero, J. J., Chapman, R., McMillan, A., Oliver, B. R., & Kovas, Y. (2021). Creative expressiveness in childhood writing predicts educational achievement beyond motivation and intelligence: A longitudinal, genetically informed study. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(4), 1395–1413. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12423