Socioeconomic Status and Parenting

Socioeconomic status (SES) is a pervasive predictor of child development; parenting is a large part of the reason why. This chapter deals with a historical introduction to research on SES and parenting, followed by a discussion of definitions of SES and approaches to its measurement. It summarizes the literature on differences in parenting cognitions and parenting practices associated with SES. The chapter traces pathways of influence from SES to parenting and identifies the separable effects of its constituents, income, education, and occupation. It discusses remaining questions and future research directions in the study of SES and parenting. Parenting practices are the behaviors parents produce in interactions with their children, the home environments parents create for children, and the connections to the world outside the home that parents both enable and permit. Parents from different socioeconomic levels expect different developmental timetables.