We propose to extend the Child and Family Study of the New Hope Project, a random-assignment experiment designed to test the effects of an employment-based anti-poverty program on family functioning and child development, using both large-scale surveys and ethnographic qualitative methods. New Hope provided low-income participants with wage supplements and subsidies for health insurance and child care if they worked full time. The rigorous random assignment experimental design represents a strong test of the causal effects of employment, income, and benefits. New Hope led to increased parental employment, income, use of center-based child care, and structured out-of-school activities for children, and, for some families, more predictable daily routines. Children in New Hope families showed substantially better academic performance and higher levels of positive social behavior in school than did the control group 2 and 5 years after parents began New Hope eligibility. These robust experimental-control differences suggest that the intervention provided by New Hope had long-term effects on children's developmental pathways. In this renewal, we propose to assess these families and children (8 years after random assignment) when the sample children are 9 - 18 years old. The major questions include: (a) Are there lasting program effects on children's achievement and social behavior when they reach late childhood and adolescence? Do program effects vary for children of different ages and for girls and boys? (b) What are the pathways of influence? We examine parent's employment, family resources, family environment, and children's out of- school experiences. The study contains multiple measures from multiple informants and an integration of ethnographic qualitative data with a large-scale survey--all of which provide the power/potential to identify theoretically interesting pathways and hypotheses. Mid-to late adolescence is a critical period for the development of values, aspirations, and attitudes that affect achievement, life planning, behavior and mental health throughout the life span. Adolescents in poverty are at high risk for low educational attainment and weak attachment to work and family during adulthood. Therefore, it is crucial to understand whether and how the program may have enhanced adolescent competencies that set a pattern for successful adult development and may have deterred problematic behaviors that signal departure from the course to adult independence and self-sufficiency.
