Disruptive events such as economic recessions, natural disasters, job loss, and divorce can have a long-lasting impact when experienced during childhood, potentially altering children’s academic achievement, health and development, and later socioeconomic attainment. While much research has considered the overall impact of disruptive events on children’s lives, the consequences of disruption vary across groups. The same disruptive event may have profound negative consequences for some groups, minor or no impact for others, and even present a positive turning point for other groups. In this special issue of RSF, an interdisciplinary group of experts examine the disparate consequences of disruptive events on children.
 
Drawing on accumulated insights of empirical work from several social science disciplines, including sociology, psychology, and economics, the editors provide a nuanced consideration of theoretical approaches and methodological challenges in identifying unequal impacts. They argue that variation in the effects of disruptive events depends on different, and sometimes offsetting, mechanisms. For example, Martha Bailey and colleagues find that more disadvantaged male youth were less negatively impacted by the macroeconomic shock of the Great Depression than more advantaged youth. Black youth, however, were more negatively impacted. Anna Baranowska-Rataj and colleagues find little evidence that parental job loss leads to worse birth outcomes or that effects vary across regions with different unemployment levels in Sweden, a nation with a relatively generous safety net and universal health care. Regarding the household disruption of parental incarceration, Kristin Turney and colleagues find that some children seamlessly step into new responsibilities, while others, especially older children who had witnessed their fathers’ frequent entanglements with the criminal legal system, consciously step away from these responsibilities. Stefanie DeLuca and colleagues argue that as youth grow accustomed to disruptive events, these exposures become less remarkable and impactful on their life outcomes. Looking at the disruption to education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Douglas Harris and colleagues find that \high school graduation has remained remarkably steady since the onset of the pandemic, but entry into two-year colleges was hard hit, especially for colleges serving more people of color and those from low-income families. Finally, considering environmental disruptions, Nazar Khalid and colleagues show that severe floods in India have a stronger impact on the educational outcomes of children from marginalized communities.
 
Through its systematic examination of the variation in the consequences of disruption, especially in early life, this volume of RSF provides an insightful and practical resource for both researchers and policymakers.
 
 

Editors:
Jennie E. Brand is Professor of Sociology and Statistics and Data Science at the University of California, Los Angeles.
 
Jason Fletcher is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
 
Florencia Torche is Dunlevie Family Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University.
  Contributors: Manuel Alcaino, Pablo Argote, Martha J. Bailey, Jere Behrman, Ann F. Bernhardt, Joseph L. Boselovic , Jennie E. Brand, Xinyan Cao, Feng Chen, Stefanie DeLuca, Jason Fletcher, Emily Hannum, Douglas N. Harris, Nazar Khalid, Peter Z. Lin, Amy Gong Liu, Estéfani Marín, Christopher R. Marsicano, Rylie C. Martin, A. R. Shariq Mohammed, Jayanti Owens, Nicholas W. Papageorge, Kristin L. Perkins, Alexa Prettyman, Emily Rauscher, Florencia Torche, Kristin  Turney, Paul T. von Hippel