Youth Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Problems in the ABCD Study: Minorities’ Diminished Returns of Family Income

Background: To investigate ethnic differences in the protective effects of family income against youth social, emotional, and behavioral problems in the US. As proposed by the Marginalization-related Diminished Returns (MDRs), family income may generate fewer tangible outcomes for ethnic minority compared to NHW families. Our existing knowledge is minimal about diminished returns of family income on parental reports of youth social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes. Aim: To compare ethnic groups for the effects of family income on parental reports of youth social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional study, data from wave 1 of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study were included. The ABCD, an ongoing national cohort of American youth brain development, included 10,762 American youth between ages 8 and 11 years old. The independent variable was family income. The primary outcomes were 1) anxious and depressed mood, 2) withdrawn and depressed affect, 3) somatic complaints, 4) social and interpersonal problems, 5) thought problems, 6) rule-breaking behaviors, 7) attention problems, and 8) violent and aggressive behaviors. These outcomes were generated based on parent-reported behavioral problems measured using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Results: Overall, high family income was associated with lower levels of parental reports of youth social, emotional, and behavioral problems across all domains (p <0.05 for all beta coefficients across multivariable regression models). Ethnicity showed statistically significant interactions with family income on youth fewer social, emotional, and behavioral problems (all domains), net of all confounders www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jepf Journal of Economics and Public Finance Vol. 6, No. 4, 2020 2 Published by SCHOLINK INC. (p <0.05 for all beta coefficients that reflected interaction terms across multivariable regression models), indicating smaller tangible gains from their family income for NHB and HW compared to NHW youth. Conclusion: The protective effects of family income against behavioral problems are systematically diminished for HW and NHB youth compared to NHW youth. To minimize the ethnic gap in youth social, behavioral, and emotional problems, diminished returns of family income should be addressed. There is a need for programs and interventions that equalize not only SES but also the marginal returns of SES for ethnic groups. Such efforts require addressing structural and societal barriers that hinder HW and NHB families from translating their SES resources into tangible outcomes. There is a need for studies that can minimize MDRs for NHB and HW families. Thus, SES can similarly secure tangible outcomes in the presence of SES resources.

Family income is a predictor of a wide range of positive developmental and health outcomes of youth across domains (Alvarado, 2018;Barreto et al., 2013;Hemovich et al., 2011;Schreier & Chen, 2013).
Studies have shown that youth from high-income families are less likely to experience economic adversities, stress, behavioral problems, and poor health (Harnett et al., 2019;Schulz et al., 2012;Yelin, Trupin, Bunde, & Yazdany, 2019). Additionally, other studies have shown that some of the ethnic gaps in youth outcomes are attributed to lower family income of ethnic minority families such as NHBs and HWs (Bell, Sacks, Thomas Tobin, & Thorpe, 2020;Fuentes, Hart-Johnson, & Green, 2007;Kaufman, Cooper, & McGee, 1997;Samuel, Roth, Schwartz, Thorpe, & Glass, 2018). As such, enhancing family income through income redistribution policies and empowering ethnic minorities to secure more income is regarded as the primary strategy for closing ethnic inequalities that children and youth are experiencing (Williams, 1999;Williams, Costa, Odunlami, & Mohammed, 2008).

Aims
To extend the existing knowledge on the MDRs literature to parents' report of youth behavioral outcomes using CBCL, one of the most widely used measures of youth behavioral problems, we compared ethnic groups of youth for the effects of family income on youth social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Family income was expected to show weaker association with youth outcomes for NHB and HW than NHW youth. While several previous studies have shown MDRs for self-reported outcomes in youth, this paper will be one of the firsts to test MDRs for parental report of youth behaviors.
ABCD is a national state-of-the-art brain imaging study of youth brain development. The advantages of using the ABCD data set were (a) national sample, (b) large sample size, (c) large sample of NHBs and HWs, (d) publicly available data, and (e) considerable SES and behavioral variables. More information www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jepf Journal of Economics and Public Finance Vol. 6, No. 4, 2020 4 Published by SCHOLINK INC.

Participants and Sampling
Participants of the ABCD study were selected across multiple cities across various states in the US. This sample was mostly recruited through school systems. The recruitment catchment area of the ABCD, which composed of 21 participating sites, encompasses over 20% of the entire United States population of 9-10-year-old youth. The ABCD applied a carefully designed sampling and recruitment process across various sites, described somewhere (Alcohol Research: Current Reviews Editorial, 2018;Auchter et al., 2018), to ensure that the sample is random and representative. Such efforts of local randomization yielded a final overall ABCD sample that is a close approximation of the US national sociodemographic factors. These sociodemographic factors include race and ethnicity, age, gender, SES, and urbanicity.
The SES target in the ABCD has two sources: 1) the American Community Survey (ACS) and 2) annual 3rd and 4th-grade school enrollment. A detailed description of the ABCD sample and sampling s available here (Garavan et al., 2018). The first is a large-scale survey of approximately 3.5 million households conducted annually by the US Census Bureau. The second data are maintained by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), affiliated with the US Department of Education.

Study Variables
The study variables included demographic factors, SES indicators, as well as Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL).

Outcome
Using the CBCL, also known as the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment, the study had the following eight outcomes: 1) anxious and depressed mood, 2) withdrawn and depressed affect, 3) social and interpersonal problems, 4) somatic complaints, 5) thought problems, 6) attention problems, 7) violent and aggressive behaviors, and 8) rule-breaking behaviors (Association, 2013

Independent Variable
Family income. Family income was a continuous measure ranging from 1 to 10, with a higher score indicating higher income. The exact question was, "What is your total combined family income for the past 12 months? This should include income (before taxes and deductions) from all sources, wages, rent from properties, social security, disability and veteran's benefits, unemployment benefits, workman".

Confounders
Age, Gender, Parental Marital Status, and Parental education were the confounders. Parental Educational Attainment was asked using this item: "What is the highest grade or level of school you have completed or the highest degree you have received?" Responses ranged from 0 to 21, with a higher score indicating higher educational attainment. Parents reported the age of the youth. Age was calculated as the difference between the date of birth to the date of the enrolment to the study. Age was a continuous measure in years.
Gender was a dichotomous variable: males = 1 and females = 0. Parental marital status, a dichotomous variable, was self-reported by the interviewed parent: married = 1 and other = 0.

Data Analysis
The SPSS statistical package 23.0 (IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA) was used for our data analysis.
Mean (standard deviation [SD]) and frequency (%) were reported for descriptive purposes. To perform multivariable analyses, two multiple multivariable regressions were performed for each outcome. First, we ruled out collinearity between our independent variables. We also tested the error terms of our regression model. We did not find any evidence against the assumptions of the multivariable regression model. All our models were performed in the pooled sample. These models controlled for age, gender, and marital status. Model 1 was performed without the interaction terms. Model 2 also included two interaction terms between ethnicity and family income. In each model, one CBCL domain was the outcome. Unstandardized regression coefficient (b), p-value, and sample size were reported for each model. We performed a sensitivity analysis by treating income as a categorical variable (quartiles). As the result did not change, we only reported the result of our main analysis, where family income was treated as a continuous measure. Data were not imputed because they were missing in less than 5%.

Ethical Aspect
The ABCD study protocol is approved by the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Institutional Review Board (IRB). All participants gave assent. Parents signed informed consent. More detailed information on the ABCD study ethical aspect is available elsewhere (Auchter et al., 2018). As fully de-identified data were used, the study was exempted from a full review.

Discussion
Our finding, diminished returns of family income on youth outcomes, was similar to what the literature has already shown regarding the MDRs of SES indicators, including family income, parental education, and family structure for NHB and HW families compared to their NHW counterparts (Assari, , 2018cAssari, 2019a;. MDRs are well documented within individuals and families.
Thus, they contribute to the trans-generational transition of inequalities. MDRs are repeatedly shown for almost all SES resources, age groups, outcomes, and marginalization types (Assari, 2017;. Our results are similar to multiple studies on MDRs. A recent JAMA paper showed that behavioral and health effects of parental educational attainment are systematically weaker for NHB and HW youth compared to NHW youth (Assari, Caldwell, & Bazargan, 2019 were generalizable as the study had used a nationally representative sample . 2019; Assari, Thomas, et al., 2018). Furthermore, other studies have shown that parental education and family income generate better boost school performance of NHW than NHB youth (Assari & Caldwell, 2019b;Assari, Caldwell, et al., 2019), a pattern that can also be in young adults on college campuses . Finally, a few studies have shown that high SES may even operate as a risk factor for depression in NHB youth (Assari, Gibbons, & Simons, 2018a;Assari, Gibbons, & Simons, 2018b).
There are multiple explanations for our findings. At all income levels, NHB and HW families face disproportionately more stress in their daily lives than NHW families. Such increased stress may reduce how much parents and youth can engage, thus limiting how much youth can gain from their parental education. High-income NHB and HW families may experience more, not less, discrimination on a daily basis Assari, Gibbons, et al., 2018a;Assari, Gibbons, et al., 2018b;Assari & Moghani Lankarani, 2018). High income NHB and HWs may also be more, not less, vulnerable to interpersonal discrimination (Assari, Preiser, Lankarani, & Caldwell, 2018). This is in part because highly educated NHB and HW families are more likely to be surrounded by NHW families and attend predominantly NHW schools and work in predominantly NHW workplaces, all www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/jepf Journal of Economics and Public Finance Vol. 6, No. 4, 2020 11 Published by SCHOLINK INC.
Environmental and contextual factors such as residential segregation affect school options for youth from high SES NHB and HW families. As a result, children of high-income NHB and HW families continue to attend high-risk highly-segregated schools. This pattern is different from high SES NHW youth who receive education at predominantly NHW schools that receive more funding, are safer, and have higher-quality teachers (Jefferson et al., 2011).
The current study did not explore societal and contextual processes that could explain intergenerational MDRs of household income for racial and ethnic minorities. MDRs may be due to institutional and structural racism Assari, 2018h). Marginal returns of income may also be smaller for families with a history of childhood poverty (Bartik & Hershbein, 2018). Racial prejudice and discrimination may interfere with the benefits that are expected to follow education (Hudson, Sacks, Irani, & Asher, 2020;Hudson, Bullard, et al., 2012;. Thus, multilevel economic, psychological, and societal mechanisms may be involved in explaining racial and ethnic gaps in the returns of household income Assari, 2018h from highly educated NHB and HW families are likely to remain at high risk of interacting with high-risk peers who are involved in behavioral problems Assari, Caldwell, et al., 2019).
The society and social structure may be critical conduits through which MDRs are developed and sustained. As a result, additional attention should be paid to various societal processes that may interfere with the returns of household income. According to the social reproduction theory, intergenerational effects of human capital may vary across groups (Bowden, Bartkowski, Xu, & Lewis Jr, 2017). Chetty showed that the intersection of race and gender alters the likelihood of upward social mobility in the US (Chetty, Hendren, Kline, & Saez, 2014).

Limitations
No study is without methodological limitations. The main limitation of this study includes the cross-sectional design. Similar to most of the literature on MDRs, this study focused exclusively on NHBs, HWs, and NHWs. We still need more studies on other ethnic groups such as Asian Americans and Native Americans, as well as other marginalizing groups based on social identities beyond race and ethnicity. Not only race and ethnicity, but all marginalizing identities potentially reduce the gains that follow family income (Assari, 2018g;Assari, 2019a;Assari & Bazargan, 2019a). Similarly, this study only investigated the MDRs of income. Other research may study other SES indicators such as wealth, and higher-level SES indicators such as neighborhood SES and income or racial segregation.
Future research may study structural and contextual factors that explain the MDRs of family SES.

Conclusion
Compared to NHWs, HW and NHB youth from high-income families remain at risk of social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Factors such as racism, segregation, stratification, and discrimination may be responsible for the reduced health effects of income for NHB and HW than NHW families. implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in analysis or writing of this report. This manuscript reflects the views of the authors and may not reflect the opinions or views of the NIH or ABCD consortium investigators. The ABCD data repository grows and changes over time.