Family Facts: Social Science Research on Family, Society & Religion

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This finding examines the relationship between adult supervision after school and children's behavior.

Compared with peers who are unsupervised after school, children who are supervised by an adult after school are less likely to engage in risky or anti-social behaviors such as skipping school, using alcohol or drugs, stealing, or hurting someone. This is true even when controlling for other factors such as parents' permissive attitudes.

Sample or Data Description
3,726 children ages 10-14 born to 2,161 mothers, for a total of 5,838 observations. The data is taken from the 1998 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Child-Mother files (NLSY-CM), which is a cohort of 12,686 men and women age 14 to 21 as of December 1978. The NSLY has conducted annual surveys of the original cohort, and in 1986 began administering biannual surveys of the women and children in the original cohort.

Source
"Home Alone: Supervision After School and Child Behavior"
Aizer, Anna
Journal of Public Economics Vol. 88, Number 9-10. August, 2004. Page(s) 1835-1848.

FindingID: 6707