Scholars@Duke
Christina M. Gibson-Davis

Christina M. Gibson-Davis CV

Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
Sanford School of Public Policy
CV

Selected Publications

Family wealth and adolescent physical health.

Journal Article Health psychology review · June 2025 Inequalities in the distribution of wealth among families with children may have deleterious health consequences, especially for adolescent children. Marked by significant psychosocial and physiological changes, adolescence is a period when socioeconomic d ... Full text Cite

A framework and policy case for black reparations to support child well-being in the USA.

Journal Article Nature human behaviour · April 2025 Enslavement of African Americans and the legacy of structural racism have led to disproportionate hardship for black people in the USA. Reparations realize unfulfilled promises of financial compensation and redress. Existing US reparations initiatives have ... Full text Cite

Net worth poverty and child Well-being: Black-White differences.

Journal Article Children and youth services review · February 2025 Net worth poverty, defined as having wealth (assets minus debts) that is less than one-fourth the federal poverty line, can have negative associations with children's development. Net worth poverty can reflect the lack of assets or the presence of debts, w ... Full text Cite

Net worth poverty and food insecurity

Journal Article American Journal of Agricultural Economics · January 1, 2025 Food insecurity is a widespread problem faced by American families, particularly those with children. It is clear that poverty contributes to food insecurity, but extant research focuses almost exclusively on income poverty (IP). We move beyond income-cent ... Full text Cite

Youth's political identity and fertility desires

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · August 1, 2024 Objective: This study examines the association between political identity and young adults' fertility desires from 1989 to 2019. Background: Understanding the factors that shape fertility preferences is important because these preferences are the critical ... Full text Cite

Beyond parental wealth: Grandparental wealth and the transition to adulthood

Journal Article Research in Social Stratification and Mobility · February 1, 2024 This study considers the multigenerational consequences of wealth transmission for the transition to young adulthood. Using a wider set of outcomes than has previously been considered, and by analyzing parental and grandparental wealth simultaneously, this ... Full text Cite

Managing and Minimizing Online Survey Questionnaire Fraud: Lessons from the Triple C Project.

Journal Article International journal of social research methodology · January 2024 With the increasing sophistication of online survey tools and the necessity of distanced research during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of online questionnaires for research purposes has proliferated. Still, many researchers undertake online survey researc ... Full text Cite

The Buffering Effect of State Eviction and Foreclosure Policies for Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States.

Journal Article Journal of health and social behavior · June 2023 The COVID-19 pandemic spurred an economic downturn that may have eroded population mental health, especially for renters and homeowners who experienced financial hardship and were at risk of housing loss. Using household-level data from the Census Bureau's ... Full text Cite

Net worth poverty and adult health.

Journal Article Social science & medicine (1982) · February 2023 This study broadens the traditional focus on income as the primary measure of economic deprivation by providing the first analysis of wealth deprivation, or net worth poverty (NWP), and adult health. Net worth poverty-having wealth (assets minus debts) les ... Full text Cite

Familial Deaths and First Birth

Journal Article Population and Development Review · December 1, 2022 Motivated by the rise in premature mortality among working-age adults, we examine the association between adult familial deaths and the transition to motherhood. Although many deaths can be disruptive, deaths that occur sooner than expected and to certain ... Full text Cite

Marriage, Kids, and the Picket Fence? Household Type and Wealth among U.S. Households, 1989 to 2019.

Journal Article Sociological science · April 2022 Evidence on how parenthood impacts household wealth in the United States has been inconclusive, partially because previous studies have decontextualized parenthood from gender, marital, and relationship status. Yet, insights from economic sociology suggest ... Full text Cite

Net Worth Poverty and Child Development.

Journal Article Socius : sociological research for a dynamic world · January 2022 The authors investigate whether net worth poverty (NWP) reduces children's well-being. NWP-having wealth (assets minus debts) less than one fourth of the federal poverty line-is both theoretically and empirically distinct from income poverty (IP) and is th ... Full text Cite

Means-Tested Safety Net Programs and Hispanic Families: Evidence from Medicaid, SNAP, and WIC.

Journal Article The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · July 2021 Hispanic families have historically used means-tested assistance less than high-poverty peers, and one explanation for this may be that anti-immigrant politics and policies are a barrier to program participation. We document the participation of Hispanic c ... Full text Cite

Net Worth Poverty in Child Households by Race and Ethnicity, 1989-2019.

Journal Article Journal of marriage and the family · June 2021 ObjectiveThis study is the first to examine net worth poverty, and its intersection with income poverty, by race and ethnicity among child households in the United States.BackgroundScholarship on economic scarcity for children has largely ... Full text Cite

Heightened immigration enforcement impacts US citizens' birth outcomes: Evidence from early ICE interventions in North Carolina.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2021 We examine how increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities impacted newborn health and prenatal care utilization in North Carolina around the time Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act was first being implemented within t ... Full text Cite

The Development of Students' Engagement in School, Community and Democracy

Journal Article British Journal of Political Science · October 1, 2020 This article explores the origins of youth engagement in school, community and democracy. Specifically, it considers the role of psychosocial or non-cognitive abilities, like grit or perseverance. Using a novel original large-scale longitudinal survey of s ... Full text Cite

"His" and "Hers": Meeting the Economic Bar to Marriage.

Journal Article Demography · December 2018 Scholars have suggested that low-income parents avoid marriage because they have not met the so-called economic bar to marriage. The economic bar is multidimensional, referring to a bundle of financial achievements that determine whether couples feel ready ... Full text Cite

Social Class Divergence in Family Transitions: The Importance of Cohabitation.

Journal Article Journal of marriage and the family · October 2018 ObjectiveThis study examined trends in familial transitions by maternal education and whether transitions rose because of changes in prevalence (the share of children exposed to a relationship state, either marriage or cohabitation) or churning (t ... Full text Cite

Children and the Elderly: Wealth Inequality Among America's Dependents.

Journal Article Demography · June 2018 Life cycle theory predicts that elderly households have higher levels of wealth than households with children, but these wealth gaps are likely dynamic, responding to changes in labor market conditions, patterns of debt accumulation, and the overall econom ... Full text Cite

Low-income Childless Young Adults' Marriage and Fertility Frameworks.

Journal Article Journal of marriage and the family · August 2017 We investigate how low-income young adults without children understand marriage and fertility. Data come from the Becoming Partners and Parents Study (N=69) a qualitative study of African-American adults ages 18-22 in a midsize southern city. ... Full text Cite

Local Job Losses and Child Maltreatment: The Importance of Community Context.

Journal Article The Social service review · June 2017 A growing body of literature suggests that economic downturns predict an increase in child maltreatment. However, to inform policies and practices to prevent and intervene in child maltreatment, it is necessary to identify how, when, and under what conditi ... Full text Cite

They Should Say "I Don't": Norms About Midpregnancy Marriage and Job Loss.

Journal Article Journal of marriage and the family · April 2017 This study examined effects of local economic conditions on individuals' attitudes toward midpregnancy marriages using an experimental vignette method. Adults (N = 460) were each shown two vignettes about a hypothetical couple expecting a baby; within each ... Full text Cite

Effects of statewide job losses on adolescent suicide-related behaviors.

Journal Article American journal of public health · October 2014 ObjectivesWe investigated the impact of statewide job loss on adolescent suicide-related behaviors.MethodsWe used 1997 to 2009 data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to estimate the effects of statewid ... Full text Open Access Cite

Magic moment? Maternal marriage for children born out of wedlock.

Journal Article Demography · August 2014 To test the existence of the "magic moment" for parental marriage immediately post-birth and to inform policies that preferentially encourage biological over step parent marriage, this study estimates the incidence and stability of maternal marriage for ch ... Full text Open Access Cite

Marriage or carriage? Trends in union context and birth type by education

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · January 1, 2014 Using data from 8,951 first-time mothers in the National Survey of Family Growth, the authors analyzed trends in union contexts during the transition to motherhood by social class (proxied by maternal education). Conventional classifications of union conte ... Full text Open Access Cite

Community-wide job loss and teenage fertility: evidence from North Carolina.

Journal Article Demography · December 2013 Using North Carolina data for the period 1990-2010, we estimate the effects of economic downturns on the birthrates of 15- to 19-year-olds, using county-level business closings and layoffs as a plausibly exogenous source of variation in the strength of the ... Full text Open Access Cite

The role of pre- and postconception relationships for first time parents

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · 2012 Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth - 1997, a nationally representative cohort of young adults, this study analyzed relationship type at the time of a first birth (N = 4,044). More than 10% of births were to a postconception cohabiting ... Open Access Cite

Breastfeeding and the child cognitive outcomes: a propensity score matching approach.

Journal Article Maternal and child health journal · November 2011 To estimate the effect of breastfeeding initiation and duration on child development outcomes. 3,271 children and their mothers participating in the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics provide data for these analyses. Main ou ... Full text Open Access Cite

Mothers but not wives: The increasing lag between nonmarital births and marriage

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · February 1, 2011 This study analyzed trends in marital behavior for unwed mothers who gave birth between 1960 and 2004. With nationally representative data on 15,353 White and Black unmarried mothers, results indicated that mothers who gave birth after 1989 were waiting mu ... Full text Cite

The Effect of WIC on Breastfeeding: A New Look at an Established Relationship

Journal Article Children and Youth Services Review · 2010 Although the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) has been credited with increasing birth weights and improving child health, the program has been criticized for reducing breastfeeding through the provision of free ... Cite

Early Childhood Family Structure and Mother-Child Interactions: Variation by Race and Ethnicity

Journal Article Developmental Psychology · 2010 With data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort (n = 6,449), a nationally- representative sample of births in 2001, we used hierarchical linear modeling to analyze differences in observed interactions between married, cohabiting, never ... Cite

The Effect of WIC on the Health of Newborns

Journal Article Health Services Research · 2010 Objective. To determine the effect of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) on birth outcomes. Data Source. The Child Development Supplement (CDS) of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The PSID provides ... Open Access Cite

Money, Marriage, and Children: Testing the Financial Expectations and Family Formation Theory

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · 2009 Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey (N = 2,954), a birth cohort study, this work examines how gains in earnings and income are associated with marriage and subsequent childbearing for low-income couples. Using change models, res ... Cite

Family structure effects on maternal and paternal parenting in low-income families

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · May 1, 2008 Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey, a birth cohort study, this study analyzes the effect of family structure on parenting for 3,402 mothers and 2,615 fathers. To address the problem of omitted variable bias, fixed ... Full text Cite

The Effect of Family Structure on Maternal and Paternal Parenting

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · 2008 Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey, a birth cohort study, this study analyzes the effect of family structure on parenting for 3,402 mothers and 2,615 fathers. To address the problem of omitted variable bias, fixed ... Cite

The association of couples' relationship status and quality with breastfeeding initiation

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · December 1, 2007 Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey (N = 3,567), we examine the links between relationship status, relationship quality, and race and ethnicity in breastfeeding initiation. We consider four relationship types: married, cohabitin ... Full text Cite

Child support among low-income noncustodial fathers

Chapter · January 1, 2007 HIGH POVERTY rates among single mother families and the consequent hardships their children face have focused attention on the role of absent fathers and child support as antipoverty strategy. Nationally, nearly 75 percent of custodial parents receive some ... Cite

Expectations and the economic bar to marriage among low-income couples

Chapter · January 1, 2007 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH indicates an interesting contradiction regarding marital beliefs and behavior among low-income individuals. Marriage rates among the disadvantaged are lower than those for the general population (Goldstein and Kenney 2001), yet their att ... Cite

The Association between Maternal Relationship Status and Breastfeeding Behaviors

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · 2007 Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey (N = 3,567), we examine the links between relationship status, relationship quality, and race and ethnicity in breastfeeding initiation. We consider four relationship types: married, cohabitin ... Link to item Cite

Connecting child care quality to child outcomes: drawing policy lessons from nonexperimental data.

Journal Article Evaluation review · October 2006 Effective early childhood intervention and child care policies should be based on an understanding of the effects of child care quality and type on child well-being. This article describes methods for securing unbiased estimates of these effects from nonex ... Full text Cite

A Cautionary Tale: Using Propensity Scores to Estimate the Impact of Food Stamps on Food Insecurity

Journal Article Social Service Review · 2006 This article uses propensity scores to evaluate the effect of food stamps on food insecurity, a measure of inadequate food supply. It relies on data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Cohort. By balancing treatment and compari ... Cite

Couples’ Immigration, and Ethnicity as Determinants of Breastfeeding

Journal Article American Journal of Public Health · 2006 Objectives: We investigated how couples’ immigration status and ethnicity determined the decision to initiate breastfeeding and to breastfeed at six months. Methods: From data collected on 4,207 mothers and 3,013 fathers participating in a longitudi ... Link to item Cite

Breastfeeding and the Verbal Ability of Three-Year-Olds in a Multi-City Sample

Journal Article Pediatrics · 2006 OBJECTIVES. Our goal was to analyze the effect of maternal verbal ability and education on the association between breastfeeding and children’s cognitive functioning. First, we hypothesized that maternal verbal abilities account for a large portion of the ... Link to item Cite

Employment and the risk of domestic abuse among low-income women

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · December 1, 2005 This paper uses data from 2 randomized evaluations of welfare-to-work programs - the Minnesota Family Investment Program and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies - to estimate the effect of employment on domestic abuse among low-income sin ... Full text Cite

High Hopes but Even Higher Expectations: The Retreat from Marriage Among Low-Income Couples

Journal Article Journal of Marriage and Family · 2005 This paper examines why low-income, unmarried parents who say they plan to marry at the time their child is born do not follow through on their plans. We use data from a nationally representative birth cohort survey – the Fragile Families and Child W ... Cite

Privileging the participant: The importance of sub-group analysis in social welfare evaluations

Journal Article American Journal of Evaluation · December 9, 2003 This paper analyzes how variation in participant take-up rates affected the impacts of the New Hope project, a random-assignment, anti-poverty program. New Hope offered experimental members four benefits-child care subsidies, wage subsidies, health insuran ... Full text Cite

Rational and Ecocultural Circumstances of Program Take-Up Among Low-Income Working Parents

Journal Article Human Organization · 2002 New Hope (NH) is a random-assignment, antipoverty program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that offers child care subsidies, wage subsidies, health insurance, and, if needed, a temporary community service job to participants working 30 or more hours per week. Desp ... Cite

Work-based antipoverty programs for parents can enhance the school performance and social behavior of children.

Journal Article Child development · January 2001 We assess the impact of the New Hope Project, an antipoverty program tested in a random assignment experimental design, on family functioning and developmental outcomes for preschool- and school-aged children (N = 913). New Hope offered wage supplements su ... Full text Cite

A Penny on the Dollar: Racial Inequities In Wealth among Households with Children

Journal Article Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World Cite