Impacts of Child Development Accounts on Maternal Depressive Symptoms: Evidence From a Randomized Statewide Policy Experiment

Can an intervention to broaden the educational futures of young children also have social-emotional benefits for their parents?

Drawing upon data from the randomized SEED for Oklahoma Kids experiment, this study examined whether maternal depressive symptoms are responsive to an intervention that automatically opened Child Development Accounts for the children of primary caregivers in a sample representative of the population of Oklahoma. Symptoms were measured at two points with a shortened version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (commonly known as the CES-D). The findings suggest that children’s social-emotional development may shape the intervention’s effects but that this economic intervention for children may benefit the psychological well-being of their parents.

Project: SEED for Oklahoma Kids