![]() Little is known, however, about how a mother’s own childhood adversity affects her ability to provide such nurturing care. A mother’s nurturing care is a critical input to early development, particularly for children at elevated risk of early adversity. Finally, in my third chapter, I present empirical evidence on the intergenerational effects of childhood trauma using the specific case of a mother’s childhood exposure to armed conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa. I conclude by discussing future avenues for research and implications for public policy. I focus on the mother as the primary caregiver in the early years of a child’s development, and examine behavioral mechanisms, and specifically parenting, as a potential pathway for the intergenerational transmission of a mother’s childhood trauma. ![]() However, they largely ignore the intergenerational dynamics of traumatic experiences, and the consequences of the mother’s own previous traumas on the early childhood home environment she shapes for her children. These frameworks acknowledge the importance of environmental influences on both processes, parenting practices and early childhood development. To understand how traumatic environments affect early childhood development, scholars previously have concentrated on two processes: (1) how early adversity and potentially traumatic experiences affect the immediate cognitive and socio-emotional development of children, and (2) the extent to which caregivers, and mothers in particular, can buffer against the potentially detrimental effects of these early experiences. In doing so, I develop a conceptual framework for studying how a mother’s childhood trauma affects her future capacities as a mother and the early developmental outcomes of the next generation. In my second chapter, I take an intergenerational perspective and review research across disciplines to demonstrate that childhood trauma should be conceptualized as an intergenerational phenomenon that plays a role in the dynamics of inequality. I identify methodological challenges to estimating the effects of maternal trauma on the early childhood home environment, and discuss policy implications and possible avenues for future research. Specifically, I investigate psychosocial pathways through which maternal trauma may affect maternal capacities and investment decisions, particularly through a mother’s behavioral responses to trauma, and its consequential effects on the early childhood home environment for children. The first chapter consists of a literature review in which I survey the existing literature across multiple disciplines on maternal trauma and the early childhood home environment. This dissertation utilizes insights from economics and child development science to examine how trauma transmits across generations from mother to child. 2021 Theses Doctoral The Economics and Child Development Science of Intergenerational Trauma
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