Family Socioeconomic Status and Child and Adolescent Developmental Outcomes: A Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Lower family socioeconomic status (SES) is widely linked to poorer child development, but the magnitude of the association varies across outcomes and samples. To synthesise correlational evidence on SES and externalizing/antisocial behaviour, internalizing/depressive symptoms, and language/literacy in children and adolescents. Multiple databases including Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed/MEDLINE were searched. Reports were screened against a pre-specified protocol (age ≤ 10 years; income/SES exposure; positive developmental outcomes), and effects were extracted as SES–outcome correlations (Fisher z). A post-hoc synthesis of the reported outcomes was undertaken with random-effects models, subgroup analysis by outcome domain, meta-regression, sensitivity analysis and funnel-plot/Egger tests using Stata version 17. 12 studies were included. Eight studies examined relations with externalizing outcomes (r = 0.04, 95% CI: 0.11, 0.03), and 6 studies examined relations with internalizing outcomes (r = 0.04, 95% CI: 0.12, 0.05). Language/literacy outcomes showed positive relations to SES (r = 0.24-0.46; exploratory pooled r = 0.38, 95% CI: 0.26, 0.49), with outcome domain accounting for significant between-subgroup heterogeneity. Mainly adolescents, family SES was weakly and inconsistently related to externalising and internalising problems, and prediction intervals were large. Language/literacy had a more robust positive SES gradient but only two small independent samples.