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Author: Ahearn, Caitlin
Resulting in 2 citations.
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Ahearn, Caitlin |
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When and For Whom is College "Worth" It? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Less-Selective College Enrollment on Economic Insecurity Presented: Atlanta GA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2022 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: Population Association of America Keyword(s): College Characteristics; College Degree; Economic Well-Being Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. College-educated individuals earn more, have more stable employment, and work in more prestigious occupations than those with lower educational attainment. As high-quality jobs and socioeconomic stability for less-educated workers have diminished, college is seen not only as a way to higher incomes, but also the surest way to avoid negative socioeconomic outcomes. The expansion of higher education over the past half century, often concentrated in less-selective four-year colleges, has led to increased attention on not just whether a student goes to college, but also where. In this study, I will use data from the 1997 cohort of the NLSY to shed light on the economic consequences of enrolling in institutions of varying type and selectivity. I will examine heterogeneity in the direct effect of less-selective four-year college enrollment on economic insecurity, the mediating effect of bachelor's degree completion, and the ways that those effects vary across gender and socioeconomic background. |
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Bibliography Citation
Ahearn, Caitlin. "When and For Whom is College "Worth" It? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Less-Selective College Enrollment on Economic Insecurity." Presented: Atlanta GA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2022. |
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Ahearn, Caitlin Brand, Jennie E. Zhou, Xiang |
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How, and For Whom, Does Higher Education Increase Voting? Research in Higher Education published online (14 September 2022): DOI: 10.1007/s11162-022-09717-4. Also: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-022-09717-4 Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97 Publisher: Springer Keyword(s): College Enrollment; Higher Education; Voting Behavior Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The college-educated are more likely to vote than are those with less education. Prior research suggests that the effect of college attendance on voting operates directly, by increasing an individual's interest and engagement in politics through social networks or human capital accumulation. College may also increase voting indirectly by leading to degree attainment and increasing socioeconomic status, thus facilitating political participation. However, few studies have empirically tested these direct and indirect pathways or examined how these effects vary across individuals. To bridge this gap, we employ a nonparametric causal mediation analysis to examine the total, direct, and indirect effects of college attendance on voting and how these effects differ across individuals with different propensities of attending college. Using data from the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, we find large direct effects of college on self-reported voting and comparably smaller indirect effects that operate through degree completion and socioeconomic attainment. We find the largest impact of college on voting for individuals unlikely to attend, a pattern due primarily to heterogeneity in the direct effect of college. Our findings suggest that civic returns to college are not contingent upon degree completion or socioeconomic returns. An exclusive focus on the economic returns to college can mask the broader societal benefits of expanding higher education to disadvantaged youth. |
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Bibliography Citation
Ahearn, Caitlin, Jennie E. Brand and Xiang Zhou. "How, and For Whom, Does Higher Education Increase Voting?" Research in Higher Education published online (14 September 2022): DOI: 10.1007/s11162-022-09717-4.
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