Multiple child caregivers and multiple cognitive caregiving practices: Associations with early childhood development in 51 low- and middle-income countries

Five issues about three cognitive caregiving practices are addressed in mothers, fathers, and children’s other caregivers in nationally representative samples from 51 low- and middle-income countries with 159,959 36- to 59-month-old children. The five issues include base rates of cognitive caregiving practices of mothers, fathers, and other caregivers of young children; associations of cognitive caregiving practices of the three caregivers with children’s development; associations among the three caregivers’ cognitive caregiving practices; comparison of the three caregivers’ cognitive caregiving practices with girls and boys; and assessments of how overall national development relates to the three caregivers’ cognitive caregiving practices. The data addressing these five issues derive from maternal reports in the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys. Mothers engaged in the most cognitive caregiving, followed by other caregivers, and then fathers. Each caregiver’s cognitive caregiving was uniquely associated with children’s development, but in models that included all three caregivers’ caregiving simultaneously, mothers’ cognitive caregiving had the largest association. In addition, mothers’ and fathers’ cognitive caregiving practices covaried, but their cognitive caregiving practices were unrelated to those of their children’s other caregivers. Girls and boys experienced similar levels of cognitive caregiving from the three caregivers. The higher a country’s level of human development, the more mothers and fathers, but not other caregivers, engaged in cognitive caregiving.

Duke Scholars

Author W. Andrew Rothenberg  

Author Jennifer Lansford Sanford School of Public Policy