This article was originally published in September 2017.
By Susan Prior
When I sit down to talk to Professor Greg Duncan, Partner Investigator at the Life Course Centre (LCC) and Distinguished Professor at the University of California Irvine, my first question is ‘Tell me a bit about yourself’. He pauses, draws breath, and answers with a smile, ‘Well, ––’ he says, ‘I’m old.’
And wise, I would probably add, judging by his self-assured and calm persona.
To illustrate just how old he sometimes feels, Duncan laments the fact that when he gives talks, and especially when he is teaching, all his references are to things that students have no experience with because the events happened before they were born! He cites the title of the seminar he was giving while visiting the LCC as a case in point – ‘Risky Business’, a nod to the 1983 Tom Cruise film of that name.
Gaining his PhD in Economics in 1974, Duncan worked on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data collection project for the first 25 years of his career at the University of Michigan, ultimately directing it. He transitioned from working purely in economics, he says, when he became interested in childhood development and education issues.
We chat about his upcoming ‘poverty brain’ project, where he will be studying the relationship between income and the developing brain during the first three years of life. Throwing money at a problem generally invites plenty of detractors and much criticism, so wouldn’t it be good to be able to prove that the act of bestowing extra income on the disadvantaged actually helped in a positive and meaningful way?
As he says, ‘Developmental scientists agree that poverty is especially likely to shape children’s early development because of the high plasticity and rapid growth of the brain during the first three years of life. Yet, there has not been a rigorous study of how income supports for families affect the brain function and development of infants and toddlers.’
This is what Duncan will be endeavouring to address with this latest research, which builds on his previous research studying the effects of poverty on children. The plan is to randomly assign low-income 1000 mothers, recruited in maternity wards of participating hospitals shortly after giving birth, unconditional payments of US$333 a month (US$4000 a year) for a period of 40 months, with the control group from the same cohort receiving US$20 a month.
We will collect information from the mother on the phone when the infant is 12 months old and in the home from the mother and child at 24 months. At age 3, mothers and children will be assessed and interviewed in research laboratories at each site. We will additionally collect state and local administrative data regarding parental employment, utilization of public benefits such as Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP), and any involvement in child protective services.
Duncan says the study, which will be conducted in the United States, where there aren’t the same social security safety nets for low income or no income earners, will provide much-needed evidence as to whether this income ‘cushion’ brings positive benefits to the children of these families or not. He says, ‘Our study will be the first to provide definitive evidence on the extent to which young children’s cognitive, emotional and brain development is affected by increased income.’
Findings from this project will directly inform policy proposals across all levels of government, and in many jurisdictions.
Duncan is very highly regarded and an exceptional leader in his field of research, so we were fortunate to have him visit the LCC and spend a week with us. He is a strong supporter of the Centre’s research into tackling the problem of deep and persistent disadvantage, which is characterised by the spread of social and economic poverty within families and across generations. He is a member of the LCC Advisory Committee and while he was with us on this visit, many of our researchers were grateful to have a rare opportunity to chat with him, one on one, face to face.
Even better, he presented a seminar, ‘Risky Business: Correlation and Causation in Longitudinal Studies of Skill Development’, in which he discussed his paper where he explores this issue using empirical tests of skill-building theories. A video of his fascinating talk is available here.