A Two-Generation Human Capital Approach to Anti-poverty Policy

Teresa Eckrich Sommer*, Terri J. Sabol, Elise Chor, William Schneider, Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Jeanne Brooks Gunn Professor, Mario L. Small, Christopher King, Hirokazu Yoshikawa Professor

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

We propose a two-generation anti-poverty strategy to improve the economic fortunes of children in the United States. Our policy bridges two traditionally siloed interventions to boost their impacts: Head Start for children and career pathway training offered through community colleges for adults. We expect that an integrated two-generation human capital intervention will produce greater gains than either Head Start or community college alone for developmental and motivational, logistical and financial, social capital, and efficiency reasons. We suggest a competitive grant program to test and evaluate different models using federal dollars. We estimate average benefit-cost ratios across a range of promising career fields of 1.3 within five years and 7.9 within ten years if 10 percent of Head Start parents participate in two-generation programs.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)118-143
Number of pages26
JournalRSF
Volume4
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2018

Funding

The Office of Head Start’s Parent, Family, and Community Engagement Framework and current Head Start grant funding encourages Head Start programs to support parents in advancing education and training toward careers and research institutions to study their impacts, suggesting strong institutional interest in two-generation human capital approaches (Administration for Children and Families 2013, 2016c). Moreover, the 2016 Head Start Performance Standards authorized by the Administration for Children and Families, the latest reform in almost twenty years, newly require that Head Start programs establish collaborative relationships and partnerships with other agencies and programs, including workforce development and training programs, adult or family literacy, adult education, and postsecondary education institutions (Administration for Children and Families 2016b; Office of Head Start 2016). Our proposal incentivizes Head Start agencies to design and evaluate such partnerships largely through additional funding for two-generation innovation to answer whether two-generation collaborative strategies improve outcomes for children and parents beyond what each program can achieve independently.

Keywords

  • Career pathway training
  • Child development
  • Head Start
  • Poverty
  • Two-generation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Social Sciences (miscellaneous)

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