Jay Belsky (born July 7, 1952)[1] is an American child psychologist and the Robert M. and Natalie Reid Dorn Professor of Human Development at the University of California, Davis.
From 1999 to 2010, he was a professor of psychology at Birkbeck University of London, where he was also the founding director of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues.
He became the Robert M. and Natalie Reid Dorn Professor of Human Development at the University of California, Davis in 2011.
[3] Belsky has published multiple studies reporting that child care is associated with an increased risk of psychological and behavioral problems for children.
One such critic, Kathleen McCartney, former director of the Child Study and Development Center at the University of New Hampshire and dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said in 1987 that "None of the studies Jay [Belsky] talks about look at the quality of child-care arrangements or the family backgrounds".