Inclusive Child Development Accounts Toward Universality and Progressivity

Inclusive Child Development Accounts showcases the global context of emerging asset-building policies and programmes around Child Development Accounts.

Child Development Accounts (CDAs) are subsidized accounts that enable families to accumulate assets to invest in children?s development and life goals, such as postsecondary education, homeownership, business development, and retirement security. The vision for CDAs is to be universal (meaning everyone participates), progressive (meaning greater subsidies for the poor), and lifelong (meaning from the cradle to the grave). Since 1991, schools, communities, states, provinces, and entire countries have launched various CDA programs and policies. In the first part of the volume, scholars highlight the core feature of "inclusiveness" of CDAs in Singapore, Israel, and the United States. In the second part, scholars report on CDA policies and projects in Taiwan, Uganda, Korea, and mainland China.

Showing how asset building can be effective in diverse cultural and social contexts, and that all these contexts emphasize the investing in children early in life and empowering of them to achieve their potential as productive citizens, Inclusive Child Development Accounts will be of great interest to scholars of social work, policy, investment, and development, as well as financial inclusivity. It originally published as a special issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development.

Introduction: Toward universal, progressive, and lifelong asset building Sherraden, M., Huang, J. and Zou, L. Part I: Inclusive Child Development Account Policies 1. Building assets from birth: Singapore’s policies Loke, V. and Sherraden, M. 2. The Saving for Every Child Program in Israel: an overview of a universal asset-building policy Grinstein-Weiss, M., Kondratjeva, O., Roll, S. P., Pinto, O. and Gottlieb, D. 3. Impacts of child development accounts on parenting practices: evidence from a randomised statewide experiment Huang, J., Nam Y., Sherraden, M. and Clancy M. Part II: Child Development Account Programs and Projects 1. Policy innovation and policy realisation: the example of children future education and development accounts in Taiwan Cheng, L.-C. 2. Assessing the impact of an asset-based intervention on educational outcomes of orphaned children and adolescents: findings from a randomised experiment in Uganda Nabunya, P., Namatovu, P., Damulira, C., Kivumbi, A., Byansi, W., Mukasa, M., Nattabi, J. and Ssewamala, F. M. 3. A qualitative study on participants’ perceptions of child development accounts in Korea Han, C.-K. 4. Breaking the cycle: an asset-based family intervention for poverty alleviation in China Deng, S. Conclusion: Policy models for child development accounts: vision, potential, strategies Huang, J., Sherraden, M. and Zou, L.

Jin Huang is Associate Professor in Social Work at the College for Public Health and Social Justice, St. Louis University, USA.

Li Zou is International Director at the Next Age Institute and Center for Social Development, Washington University in St. Louis, USA.

Michael Sherraden is the George Warren Brown Distinguished University Professor and Founding Director at the Center for Social Development, Washington University in St. Louis, USA.