How does a Child Development Account (CDA), opened for an infant at the time of birth, shape that child’s trajectory as he or she grows? For 12-year-old children and their families, the CDA in SEED for Oklahoma Kids had very large positive impacts on financial outcomes and some positive impacts on nonfinancial outcomes, even though the experiment had little intervention over the past 9 years.
This report presents findings from the long-running SEED for Oklahoma Kids experiment, a randomized Child Development Account experiment. Launched in 2007 with a representative sample of newborns, the experiment provided CDAs with substantial initial deposits to children in the treatment group, offering their parents savings incentives and subsidies. The experiment has continued to follow beneficiaries, who are now adolescents. Released in conjunction with a Research Summary on financial outcomes as of December 2019, this report presents results from a 2020 survey of the beneficiaries’ parents and from analyses of account data through 2019. The results continue to reveal the role of CDAs and assets in the lives of families.
Project: SEED for Oklahoma Kids (SEED OK)
Citation
Huang, J., Beverly, S. G., Clancy, M. M., Schreiner, M., & Sherraden, M. (2021). A long-term experiment on Child Development Accounts: Update and impacts of SEED for Oklahoma Kids (CSD Research Report No. 21-07). Washington University, Center for Social Development. https://doi.org/10.7936/e8mf-p262