Citation
Guo, Guang (1997). Review of Susan E. Mayer, What Money Can't Buy: Family Income and Children's Life Chances (Harvard University Press, 1997). Social Forces, 76(2), 707-709.Abstract
Susan E. Mayer's short and effective book is primarily concerned with one question: Does increasing poor parents' incomes lead automatically to improvement in child outcomes as suggested by conventional research? Numerous studies have shown a detrimental effect of low income on the outcomes of children. Almost all these studies are nonexperimental and based on conventional regression analysis, so their results may be spurious. In other words, low-income parents may differ from middle- or high-income parents in «social adjustment, skills, enthusiasm, dependability, and hard work" It is these differences rather than the differences inincome that account for the differences in child outcomes. Income is simply another outcome of these differences.